Winter at Locksley
by WollstonecraftHomeGirl
Summary: Modern AU. Edith is a PhD student running away from London to pursue a line of research. She finds herself in the small Yorkshire village of Locksley, where local landowner Anthony Strallan is struggling with his business and his life. T rated, will move into M with an appropriate warning at the top of the chapter.
1. Chapter 1

Edith Crawley scowled across the desk. Her head ached with the urge to shake, her eyes wanted to roll.

He was actually wearing Doc Martens, and what looked like a velvet jacket. The sides of his hair had been shaved and he was obviously trying to grow a beard. It emerged in fits and starts. Presumably, he thought the glasses with the thick black rims made him look cool, adding to his carefully crafted persona: Michael Gregson, Hipster Professor.

In reality they made him look desperate. A man grappling with his fading youth, an ungainly arm-wrestle, which he was losing, and without any grace. That's what she'd been as well, she could admit it to herself now. An ornament in the battle against old age; the young girlfriend.

He peered over the plastic rims and stretched backwards in his chair, bringing his feet onto the corner of the desk, crossing his ankles.

"Edie, Edie, Edie."

She wanted to scream at him, "Stop calling me Edie!" For good measure she'd throw in, "Your glasses look ridiculous!" and "Your beard is patchy and always will be!" But, of course, she held her tongue and stretched her lips into a brittle smile instead.

"What _am_ I going to do with you?" His eyes raked over her face, dropped to the gap in her blouse and the slight swell of breast that must be visible there. She pulled the white cotton closed and wondered if he'd always been this lecherous and it had simply escaped her notice.

She hated that this man had seen her naked. _Hated_. She'd give almost anything on earth to take it back. A wholly unsatisfying nine months, the entirety of her MA studies. She was so flabbergasted to find an older, handsome, intelligent man who showed an interest in her beyond the odd benevolent smile that she'd practically fallen over herself to jump into bed with him. Time showed her the truth. Gregson didn't understand her, he didn't really want to, she'd been an idea in his head, one she couldn't hope to match. She wasn't vivacious or flirty or simpering or any of those things men imagined about younger women.

She was twenty-three going on sixty-three and perfectly content with it, thank you very much.

For as little as he understood her, she realised she'd misjudged him just as badly. He was older in years, but that was it, age really was just a number. He was immature and insecure and not that intelligent after all. Once she'd realised all those things the last element in his favour fell away too: he ceased to be handsome. Nonetheless, they'd rumbled along for nine long months until he'd finally ended it and she was overwhelmed with relief.

The relief lasted over two years, until six months ago when her wonderful PhD supervisor had announced she was pregnant and that she'd found the perfect replacement to see out the remainder of Edith's studies: Professor Michael Gregson.

It would've been funny, if it weren't so terrible. Edith hadn't gone out with a great many men in her life and yet one of them had been sent to control her entire future. As if it wasn't mortifying enough simply presenting her work to be criticized.

He held her latest chapters over the desk and dropped them without ceremony.

"These just won't do I'm afraid." He spoke plainly, tone flat, as if sending back an overcooked salmon. She knew the tone because he was forever sending back food and wine and on one occasion, a complimentary breadbasket which didn't quite come up to snuff. He was such an ass.

This wasn't an overcooked fillet of fish. This was her life.

Months and months of work and stress and sleepless nights. She woke up sometimes, mentally cutting swathes of chapter four or reordering chapter nine. This thesis was her entire being and the best he could manage was ' _these just won't do_.' And that feedback came after countless submissions by email, most of which went unanswered. The few perfunctory replies that had arrived in return didn't suggest it wasn't good enough. They didn't say much of anything at all.

"If you could be a little more specific?"

"Perhaps if you wrote more like a man?"

"I'm sorry?" Her eyebrows were in her hairline, practically across the top of her skull and off down her back.

"More like a man, you know?" He waved his hand as if to indicate the obviousness of his point.

She bit back a sarcastic remark. Flushing pink and feeling his eyes on the travelling red wave rolling across her cheeks, "I'm afraid I don't."

"Have a point of view." He explained.

Aside from the ridiculous notion that all men had a point of view, it was hard to argue with him there. It wasn't that she didn't have a point of view, she had one, she had several, in fact. It was in expressing them where she got into difficulty. Finding the space to set down her own thoughts, as though they were something that mattered in and of themselves, that had been her problem since her very first supervision at Cambridge.

"I-I thought that – perhaps – I mean in chapter eight there is a section –"

He interrupted, "No. It's not enough."

She looked down at her hands, squeezed them together, and fought off the rising lump in her throat.

"Edie, look -."

Oh, she hated the way he said it, as though she was some beloved pet: _Eeeedie_.

"It's fine, but I can put it no higher than that. Will you get your PhD? Yes. But further funding, a teaching position, permanent residence with a University?" He counted off her hopes and dreams on his fingers, "On this basis of this –" He lifted the chapters and dropped them down again, "I think not."

"But surely some parts of it are good enough?" Desperation tinged the words.

He shrugged and fired off the worst of it, "It's all hopelessly derivative. It needs _more_."

The damning words echoed in a whisper around the office, "hopelessly derivative." It took her moment to realise it wasn't an echo, it was her own voice parroting them back. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be shot.

"I'm afraid so."

Her stomach threatened a revolt. She took a deep breath but it made it worse. She had to get out of this office. She stood, looked around aimlessly. Put her hand to her head, bit her lip.

"Edith?" He cocked a brow, still leaning back in his big leather chair, with his ugly brown boots up on the desk. It was nothing to him to treat her this way.

She grabbed her handbag, lunging for her hopeless chapters and stuffing them inside, hoping to enact a reverse rabbit in a hat - they might disappear. She tossed the bag over her shoulder, "I just wish you'd told me a bit sooner."

"Don't be like that."

"Like what?"

"Petulant."

She'd never hit anyone, she'd never wanted to, but now she imagined clenching her fingers into a fist – thumb on the outside, just like Matthew had taught her – and slamming it into the side of his face. Petulant? _Petulant_! As if she was some moaning child and not a graduate student, asking that her thesis supervisor actually supervise, rather than waiting until the eleventh hour to tell her she'd written something useless.

Instead of hitting him squarely in the jaw, she apologised with a shrug.

He came around the desk and she instinctively took a few steps back. He didn't take the hint. He came right into her personal space. His hands were on her shoulders, "let's go and get a drink. I can talk you through it - show you how it's done."

 _God_ , had he actually winked?

She pulled away, "No!" His eyes narrowed, "No, thank you, Michael. But no. I-I'm just going to go to the library and work a little more. Perhaps another time."

The rain outside the faculty carved through the air in violent sheets. Edith knew exactly where she'd left her umbrella, lying useless and damp by the leg of her kitchen table. Ordinarily, she'd have waited it out, gone to the library - fulfilled her lie to Gregson - but agitation propelled her outside. The flabby chapters weighed down her handbag, caused pains to shoot up her arm, spiraling into her shoulders.

London was noise and smells, blaring and assaulting until her sinuses were so full of the City she could barely breath. She stumbled her way to a waiting taxi and clambered in. The cabbie chuckled, perhaps made a joke about drowned rats. She barked her address in Bloomsbury and silenced his attempt at comradery.

Her hand went to the button controlling the window, she lowered it slightly, the rain stinging her face. She rolled up the pages of the manuscript in her hand, prepared to pitch them out into the elements where they could become detritus on the mess of Kingsway's crowded carriages. But she couldn't do it.

The window closed, she rested her forehead on the cool glass.

Idly she pushed the sheets of the latest chapter between thumb and forefinger, counting the pages of her uselessness. It flopped open in her hand at the start of chapter seven. It started, like all the other chapters, with a quote:

' _I will continue to fight for all womankind because I must. Hang the consequences that fall on my shoulders!'_

What consequences? Edith traced the lines of the text with her index finger.

Probably the usual ones faced by all women who continued to fight for women's rights. Ostracised by society, belittled by husbands and fathers, brothers and sons. Often faced with an artificial choice between femininity and their cause. Myriad reasons.

The rain lashed against the window. The taxi indicator blinked insistently across the puddles in the road.

Edith's eyes drifted back to the stark black typeface. It was such a personal declaration. The consequences weren't a possibility; they were inevitable, expected even. Destined to weigh on the author's very being, her own burden to carry.

A little number one hovered just outside the close of the quotation marks, her eyes dropped to the corresponding footnote. She hadn't referenced the primary source, only the secondary.

It caused her to flinch. A small, enormous oversight, particularly now that the quote was crying out for an explanation. It just wouldn't do. She thumped on the perspex divide and directed the driver to the British Library.

Once inside the building she ordered the book. She couldn't even remember it now. It wasn't a famous text. A small history of northern towns and cities. It dated back to the early 1970s and gender history was barely a concept back then. She'd probably just skimmed it; the quote was probably the only bit which had caught her eye. Now it hummed about her mind, crowding out Gregson's criticisms.

 _What consequences?_

Finally the book was up from storage and she raced through its pages, desperate to find the familiar words.

And there it was. She squeaked with delight, received a scowl from the old lady at the next desk and a smile from the young woman at the one in front.

The quote was buried, mid-paragraph on page eighty-three. There was no context to speak of. It stood alone. It was referenced, the author and the source secreted somewhere in the endnotes. She found the relevant one:

 _J. Pearson, Diary, March 1920, Locksley Library Archive, Yorkshire._

A Miss or a Mrs, or possibly even a Ms if she'd been very progressive, J. Pearson was the woman facing the consequences of fighting for her fellow woman. But Edith still didn't know if they were personal ones or the same as all the other women she'd written about. What if it was something different entirely? Some new avenue to explore? A source untapped since 1972?

The information was vital. She was opening chapter seven with this woman's words. She needed to know what Miss Pearson was talking about, at the very least.

 _Locksley Library Archive, Yorkshire._

The diary was in Yorkshire.

There was only one thing to do.

Despite the fact that her bank account was in a sorry state, she took her second taxi of the day back to the flat. She grabbed a bag from the cupboard and took out her mobile phone whilst simultaneously retrieving her laptop from the kitchen table and stuffing some underwear from the clotheshorse into the open bag. It was quite the feat of multi-tasking until she stumbled into the dresser trying to stop herself from dropping the computer.

"Shit!"

An Irish voice interrupted the insistent ringing, "Branson residence."

Edith balanced the phone precariously between her chin and shoulder blade, trying to plug her computer into the power cable at her desk, "Tom? It's Edith."

"Edie? You're all muffled." He shouted, as if that might compensate for her poor diction.

She got the laptop plugged in and put the phone on he desk, hitting speakerphone, "Better?"

"Much. What's up?"

"I just wanted to tell you guys that I'm going away for a while."

"Oh? Where?"

She typed the destination into Google, "Locksley. It's a village in Yorkshire."

"What's in Locksley?"

"It might be nothing, or something. They have an archive up there and there's a diary I've seen a couple of quotes from which is supposedly stored there. It might be helpful for my thesis, if it's even there. Or it might not be useful, if it's there, which it might not be. I don't know." The uncertainty coursed through her, overpowered by the only certainty she'd felt in some time. The one that had come over her when she'd gone back to that book and seen where Pearson's diary was kept: she was going to Yorkshire.

"Ok." He dragged out the 'o' indicating he didn't follow, "I thought the thesis was basically done?"

"So did I." She rubbed her hand over her brow, opened the _Trainline_ website, "It is." Typed 'Locksley' into the white box, "or, I thought it was. It needs something. I think it just - there's - it's not right, Tom. It's not quite right."

"Ede?"

She exhaled her frustration, "I have to go Tom. I need to."

The line was dead silent. She wondered if the connection had dropped, perhaps Tom had wandered into the dim recesses of his and Sybil's basement flat, "we'll grab drinks tonight then, bid you farewell?"

"I'm leaving today." She clicked the buy button on the website, silently mourning the low three figures flying from her meager bank account and that wouldn't even get her there. Locksley had no train station, so she'd have to battle with two local buses to make it the rest of the way.

"Well, I'll come over now, we can pop to the pub?"

She shouted across the room as she dumped clothes thoughtlessly into a bag, "Nope. My train leaves in 32 minutes."

"Ede. This isn't - this impulsiveness - this isn't like you." It was as though his face had found her through the phone, earnest in its Irish confusion and concern. She could see his slightly furrowed brow, the tilt of the head. The remnants of the Catholic schoolboy in her sister's agnostic husband.

"Yep. Well." She shrugged at her empty bedroom, "This is what's happening." She unplugged the laptop and pushed some books into her bag.

"How long will you be gone?"

"I don't know. If there's nothing there, I could be back in a matter of days." She sat back down at the desk and took the phone off speaker as her inkjet printer brushed the train tickets noisily into existence, "kiss the bump for me?"

"I will. You think you'll be back for the birth?"

Tom and Sybil's first child was due in early December, her first niece or nephew, she was excited, of course, but she hoped she'd miss the birth, she hoped there would be such a mass of material in Yorkshire she'd be bogged down in it for ages - weeks, months, years, eons. It was the only thought that stopped her crumpling into a heap on the floor.

"I don't know. But Sybil doesn't need me there. She's got you and Mom and Mary."

Tom snorted, "I don't think Mary will be there for the birth of her own children, let alone anyone else's. She'll be back in the waiting room."

"Smoking a cigar."

"With an old fashioned."

"On the rocks."

Tom chuckled, "Or maybe I'm underestimating her, maybe she'll get right in there and just scowl the kid right outta Syb. No muss, no fuss."

"Well then, you really don't need me. You've been to all the classes. Mum's had three of her own and if all else fails there's scary Aunt Mary."

He was silent for a moment, probably waging a war with himself over whether he should pry further into her rationale for going North so quickly. Edith held her breath.

"Call us when you get there?"

She smiled her relief, "Of course."


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N Sorry for the delay in posting. Naïve of me to think mid-week posts were ever going to get done. Will post weekly from now on at the weekend. Thank you for the reviews, nice to see the Andith shippers are still out there._

Nothing dimmed Edith's enthusiasm.

Not the three-hour train journey to York. Not the man who took the seat next to her and smelt faintly of onions and consumed five cans of Carling whilst his elbow progressively encroached into her personal space. Not the thirty-minute delay outside Retford. Not the first bus. Nor the second. Not even the unexpected third bus after the second one stopped and ejected all the passengers for reasons she still didn't quite understand.

But standing outside the Locksley village library at almost exactly 6.15pm, faced with a prominent closed sign, all her energy drained away.

The clocks went back the weekend before and the night was folding in around her, a heavy black cloak. She swayed on the spot, cold and stranded. All her efforts were concentrated on getting here. On the words of J. Pearson.

But the library was shut. And she had nowhere to stay. That very basic idea, the need for one of her basic human requirements – shelter – hadn't even crossed her mind.

The roads were empty. And it was quiet. So terribly quiet she could hear her thoughts again.

Her work was hopelessly derivative and her future was hopeless because of it.

Pulling her cardigan tight around her shoulders she walked towards the lights of the village. At least, like all good English villages, it had a pub.

The William Wilberforce smelt of stale hops and barley. The eyes of the few patrons looked up from their drinks amidst hushed conversations to greet her arrival with narrowed gazes filled with suspicion. Throwing her head back as though she wasn't a million miles from somewhere she recognised, she walked towards the very centre of the premises. The gazes reverted away, perhaps fooled by her pretence of belonging.

She sat on the most stable looking barstool like it was a pew at church. A peaceful calm came over her. Here, she might find deliverance.

Or get stinking drunk.

Frankly, either one worked.

A wrinkled paper napkin appeared in front of her, set down by long, thin fingers with chipped black polish. A pair of uninterested eyes lined with what looked to be black felt-tip pen blinked down at her. His t-shirt was black too. The only hint of colour was the red Levis tab on his black jeans.

"What can I get you?" The tone of the question indicated the waiter's absolute disinterest in the answer.

"Is there a wine list?"

Matthew would've told her that wine wasn't the most efficient route to inebriation, but she didn't have the stomach or the taste for spirits.

"Sure. Ready for it?"

Edith furrowed her brow, "I'm sorry, I don't follow."

"Are you ready for the wine list?" The waiter smiled – well, he bared his teeth and spoke through them, "we have red or white. If you'd like a rosé I can just mix the red and white together – custom vintage."

He widened his eyes and tapped his finger on the bar. The gesture acting in substitute for the words he couldn't say – _hurry the fuck up_. This guy hated her. Actually, he probably hated everything and everyone.

"Red it is then." She smiled as best she could, hoping to generate some reciprocal warmth from her reluctant barman. It didn't work.

The glass screeched on the surface of the bar, pocked by white water stains. It was, at least, completely full. She'd say this about the ramshackle, tired old pub: they weren't skimping on the booze.

Edith grimaced at the first gulp. Vinegary.

She dipped her finger in the wine and ran a line of liquid around the rim, called forth a high-pitched hum. At the waiter's scowl she desisted.

Taking a second gulp she cast her eyes around but the pub's few other occupants were tucked in twos and threes in dark closed corners.

She cleared her throat, the waiter was an intimidating combination of angry and apathetic, but he was the only person to ask, "do you know whether there are any rooms available around here?"

He blew a slow chewing gum bubble and popped it with his teeth. Menacing even in that childlike gesture, "there are rooms, in May, June, July and August. There are rooms during _the season_. You're a couple of months too late."

"I realise that, but there must be someone who wants to make some cash, even in the off season. I'm very small and compact, as you can see." She opened her arms, as if presenting herself as a prize on a game show, "I'll be absolutely no bother."

His eyes flicked to her string of pearls, down to her leather bag and up to her half drunk glass, "no?"

The judgment in his eyes cowed her, she wished it wasn't the case, but it was. He had her card marked. _Posh_. _City_. _Bird_.

All of which was aggravatingly, technically true. She was posh, to all intents and purposes although it wasn't a label she wore with pride. She was a London girl, with a detour in Cambridge for a few years. And she was a girl – a woman, supposedly - her passport proclaimed her age as twenty-seven, although that number seemed impossible.

But to write her off for those things was unfair in the extreme.

She pulled her cardigan tighter, shuffled on the stool, "No. None at all. I'm just here to do some research at the library and then I'll be on my way."

"They'll have rooms in York."

York was where the train had deposited her, her heart started to beat a little faster, "that's thirty miles away."

"You'll have to drive."

"I don't – " She was shouting and she caught herself, willed her voice to a reasonable level, "I don't drive. I don't have a car."

"How the hell did you get here?"

"Train and three buses."

"Jesus." He topped up her glass, "so you're stuck?" 

"Yes."

"Why the hell did you come all the way up here without booking a room?"

She sighed, "That's a long story." That was a lie. The story was embarrassingly short.

He murmured something about expectations and things dropping straight into laps and perhaps the words 'silver spoon'.

He huffed and rolled his eyes and looked for all the world like he wanted to be anywhere else, " _Fine_. I'll make some phone calls for you. But I'm not promising anything. You might have to find a way to curl up in your _Mulberry_." He smiled the smile that was really a snarl again, "Leather that soft will probably make for a comfortable bed."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you so-" He'd slinked off before she could finish, disappearing behind a door in the back.

A voice wafted into her consciousness. A little tentative, but clear and precise, no local accent to speak of, "wine's not the choice of drink at the majority of Yorkshire's drinking establishments."

She took another glug, swirled the sediment around the glass, "hard to believe, given the top quality vintages available."

He chuckled, a warm sound, "that good?"

She held up her empty glass, "it's alcoholic, which given my current mood, means it's the Best Wine In The World." She didn't look at him. She looked at the door, hoping her unlikely knight in plain black would return with good news. Slain the dragon. Found a room.

"Ah, I see. One of those days?"

"One of those months." Years. Lives.

The waiter finally emerged meandered his way down the bar, wine bottle already in hand – clever boy.

"I've put a call in to someone, she's going to see what she can do."

"Thank you, I really am so grateful."

He turned his attention to the new patron, "What can I get you?"

"You know, I think I'm going to try a red wine."

"Don't!" She'd spit out a little of her latest glug. Elegance and grace were rarely Edith's friends, but they'd truly abandoned her in that moment. She wiped at her chin with the back of her hand, the red liquid carving two imperfect lines down to her wrist. She turned on the bar stool, "it's _really_ dreadful. I wasn't joking when I said its only redeeming feature was that it's alcoholic. And that's not a feature, not really, because it _has_ to be alcoholic. It wouldn't be wine if it wasn't alcoholic."

One side of his mouth kicked up, pushed two crescent shaped lines into the skin at the corner of his lips. A dimple burrowed into his cheek. A roadmap of warmth, leading to his eyes. Blue. Not like the sea. She'd seen the sea during conferences in Brighton and Blackpool; muddy, angry, green. Not like the sky either with its dull greys and off-white clouds.

They were light and ethereal. The fabric for the silken dress of a mythical water nymph. Cerulean perhaps.

The words nearly slipped out. _Gosh, your eyes are just lovely_. If he'd sat down a little later, when she was finishing glass number two rather than just starting it they might have done. But he hadn't and so they didn't. She caught them in her throat, ordered them to the back of her brain.

He chuckled, "Alright, alright." He turned his attention to the man in front of him, "Just a Scotch, thank you."

"Coming up."

The tinny tones of an ancient mobile rang out. She could hear the well-spoken man rustling around in his pocket. He apologised to the room for the intrusive sound and stepped away to take his phone call.

It was her intention to return to her wine. To go back to the plan of getting stinking drunk and passing out, either in the hotel room which would – God willing – be found, or on the street, a well-spoken tramp. For a while she kept on, just nursing the alcohol, focused on her goal.

Then she was aware that he was back, sitting on that same stool, only a couple down from her. It was as though her neck acted independently of her brain, guiding her head slowly away from the spot at the bottom of her glass and over to the mysterious blue-eyed man.

He was looking at her. Their eyes met, he flashed a small smile, and her head quickly reverted to its previous position. She could feel the blush creeping up her neck, settling on her cheeks. She hated that, as though she was an embarrassed child and not a grown woman. She was allowed to look around the pub in which she was drinking. She thought she'd mastered this - the shyness, the uncertainty, the all-consuming awkwardness.

She didn't want to be embarrassed, she wanted to look at him. To examine those features again, to take in the aspects of him she hadn't had time to examine before. She had the mouth and the eyes and the small dimple. The rest was good too, she knew this, but couldn't be precisely sure. Was his hair blonde? Did he even have hair? Perhaps he was entirely bald.

He can't have been bald.

With as much subtlety as she could muster her eyes scanned the length of the bar, bouncing over the swirls and divots in its surface, around a half eaten bag of peanuts and finally focusing on his Scotch, already half drunk. They scurried over his fingers and up his arm. She had to tilt her chin to get the correct angle to see his face. Her hand was fastened over her mouth, a pretence at normality, a poor one.

He was looking up at the television screen poking out of the corner of the dark room. She was relieved he wasn't looking at her.

She was.

Blonde hair. A flock of it. Fine and slightly unruly. It looked soft. She imagined she could run her fingers through it without them becoming tangled. It would flow over them like water.

A flex in his neck muscles. The hair was moving, the face too, and in her general direction. Startled, she snapped back to face forwards, blush burning bright again. Feigning normality her hand grabbed for the wine. The crack of shattering glass showed how spectacularly she'd failed.

"Oh-" Her hand darted towards the mess.

"Steady!"

"Don't!"

The twin shouts came from both directions. The diverting man beside her, who jumped up and reached out, and the moody waiter in front, leaning nonchalantly one moment and diving towards her the next.

They were both too late.

The pain was sharp; biting deep and reverberating up her arm, she hissed and squeezed her eyes shut. She blinked out of the darkness and looked down at the palm of her hand. For a moment she was amazed. No injury at all. Perhaps it had all been the power of suggestion. She'd touched the broken glass though, she was sure she had.

As she looked, almost as if she'd summoned it, the blood rose up, revealing the half-crescent gash in the soft flesh beneath her thumb. It pooled on her skin and circled around the piece of glass bedded into her skin. It was the size of a fifty pence piece.

"Oh dear –" Her instinct was to pull it out but warm fingers wrapped around her wrist.


	3. Chapter 3

Four large fingers and a thumb. They closed easily around her slender wrist, with room to spare. No wedding ring. A detail she'd never normally notice. Not even a shadow or indent where one might have been until recently.

Her pulse was elevated, presumably he could feel it beneath his fingers. His grip wasn't tight, but it wasn't light either. There was no chance of getting free without a sharp tug. Freedom wasn't so very appealing anyway.

"Don't touch it."

His voice was remarkable. Somehow gentle and assertive at the same time.

The sullen waiter scraped the glass off the side and into a red plastic box.

Her captor looked at him with thinly veiled irritation, "First aid kit?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

The barman responded sarcastically, "Oh, right, it's just upstairs, you know, along with the risk assessment and accident book." He lifted an indifferent shoulder and glared, guffawing, "Whaddya want from me?!"

"For God's sa – come with me."

He waited whilst she pushed herself off the stool and, to her surprise, he led her outside, the wind brushing over her exposed skin. She sucked in a breath of air, gasped in vain for relief from the cold.

He glanced back, "sorry, I didn't think about your coat."

The truth was, she hadn't either. There was a warm winter coat waiting for her, a ruffle of fake fur around the collar, a heavy wool blend, lined with warm silk. The problem was that it was waiting for her in London. Hung up in her hall cupboard.

She'd come to Yorkshire, in October, and she'd done so without a coat. Hopelessly derivative and simply hopeless to boot. Tears welled and she shook them away; it was the cold and the pain. _It was_.

The tall man led her – hand on wrist – across the car park to a dark green Land Rover. It was exactly the model she'd seen in front of a thousand farmhouses on the journey up. This one was a bit more up-to-date than some of those, although not too much. Then again, no one driving a Land Rover wanted it to look like anything other than a Land Rover, modern wasn't just an alien concept here; it was no concept at all.

Her wrist was released from the firm circle of his fingers, "keep this elevated please." He opened the boot door, and patted the inside of the car, "sit."

"You don't lock it?" She perched just inside the boot, the backs of her knees an inch or so from the bumper. It wasn't tidy but there wasn't the riot of dirt one expected in these vehicles.

He'd gone to the passenger door and returned with a bright red first aid box, "honestly, who would steal it?"

"It's a nice car." She shrugged and looked around her. There were some tools, a few large files, a couple of books in the dim recesses at the very corner, the darkness obscuring their titles, and a battered looking wooden walking stick, "The great thing about these cars is you can drive them through fire, wind, rain – all the elements – and they'll still run."

He'd unclipped the box and pushed bandages and plasters aside. He retrieved a small bottle, "so you're saying I drive the cockroach of cars?"

"Precisely."

"Perhaps." His blue eyes locked with hers and she had the sudden sense that she was tilting towards him, into him, a dive into the cerulean blue ocean, she shuffled back a bit, feeling silly, "But I'm not sure that's what a joyrider is after and I think most people round these parts purchase their off-roaders in a legitimate fashion."

Then his hand traced along the back of her palm, leaving goosebumps in its wake, and he lifted the site of injury to the space between them. His eyes flicked away from hers and he tilted his head. He made a murmur of approval or perhaps assent and nodded. A whole conversation conducted in his mind.

"I need you to hold your wrist at this height with your other hand. Support it from underneath. Your instinct will be to move it away but you mustn't."

She did as instructed. The piece of glass seemed larger somehow, cold and alien. It was terribly sore and she whined, "Can't you hold it up?" His firm grip had been such a comfort before and she'd known she couldn't get away easily; that she must submit to his care.

"No." There was a heavy finality in his tone.

The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but her hand made for a gruesome sight. Once the piece of glass had been pulled out – the thought made her shiver – she expected the bleeding would start all over again.

"Shit." He hissed the word. A wad of wet cotton was placed onto her knee and he righted the bottle he'd spilt.

The smell was unmistakeable. It was a thousand memories of primary school, irrevocably linked with youthful enthusiasm and immediate regret. The bolt across the playground followed by the grazed knee. The tree she could absolutely climb and the pierced skin. That distinct metallic odour of antiseptic. Now it was the rush to Yorkshire and the alcohol induced stupidity. But as his eyes crinkled with concentration and he was poised to start his ministrations, she thought perhaps it might remind her of him and that wasn't so very bad.

"Ow!" Instinctively her hand dropped away from him.

"What did I tell you? You must hold it up." His tone brooked no argument and she raised the hand back up, "Did I not mention this would sting?"

"You didn't mention anything at all!"

"Apologies." He chuckled and mopped up her wound. He discarded the dirtied wad of cotton and picked up another from her knee. Carefully he traced the line where glass had met so violently with skin. She hissed and flinched. He paused from time to time, waited for her to collect herself and then continued.

"Are you a doctor?"

"No. Why?" His eyes sparkled and the dimple appeared, "Worried?"

"Not at all, actually. You have the calm, capable air of a doctor."

"Yes, I'm so very capable that I spilled antiseptic all over the boot of my vehicle." His voice was flat and the dimple receded. He'd padded the base of the glass with the white cotton.

He feathered the edge of the glass with his fingers before taking a firm hold, her gulp was audible. That light firmness returned to his voice, "Right, by the count of three, out it comes, easy as you like, ok?"

"Ok." Her voice cracked, she coughed and cleared her throat, "Yes. Do it."

"One –"

Perhaps the screech was a bit melodramatic. The crows didn't help, taking immediate flight from their perches in the oak tree at the edge of the car park, setting off an immediate accompanying chorus of flapping and cawing.

Of course he'd pulled it out before three. _Of course_ _he had_ , she'd seen this in the movies, she should've seen it coming.

"You – you – I – you liar!"

"It was the only way I could be sure you wouldn't move your hand."

"Lying, cheating, traitorous."

He laughed and held the cotton swab to the open wound left by the glass, "steady on!"

"You promised!"

"I did no such thing. I said ' _by_ the count of three' I made you no promise."

"Devious, deceitful, misleading, duplicitous, underhand –"

The thesaurus of insults trailed off as the pain ebbed away and she became aware that his fingers had curled around the back of her hand and were stroking the soft divots of skin between her knuckles. She dared a look at his face. He blew a funnel of air through his lips; it travelled up and caught on the hair which had come to rest on his forehead. Completely ineffectual, it flapped around a bit and landed exactly where it had started. Then he looked at her, his mouth slightly open and abruptly, the stroking stopped.

He stepped back – when had he ended up standing in the _vee_ between her open legs?

"That looks alright. Let's get it taped."

His attention returned to the first aid box, head dipped. He crossed thin white plasters across the cut, pulling it together. She held it up and admired his handiwork, "We could have a game of noughts and crosses."

He looked at the pattern he'd left. "Yes. Just the one though and, doctor or not, I'm fairly certain drawing a biro line across the wound isn't best practice. Hold this."

He handed her a slab of cotton bandage and she set it across the offending area, "you're probably right."

"So I'm deceitful – devious – misleading – oh, duplicitous – that one was my favourite! But certainly right about this."

"I didn't mean those things. It hurt. I was venting the pain. Like when you stub your toe and curse at the table leg." 

He laughed again, "So I'm a table leg now?"

She was relieved, inexplicably so, that she hadn't offended him, "A very useful table leg."

He taped the bandage in place, "There. That should be fine."

She stood up, went to brush off the back of her jeans, realising as she did that he still held her hand within his. Fingers lingering, his thumb settled in the centre of her palm, just besides the white cotton, drawing circles. It took all her wherewithal not to moan with delight at the sensations. They were better than any pain relief.

"Sorry." He let her hand go and she was strangely bereft.

"For what?"

He shrugged, looked a little bashful, "Touching you."

"It would've been rather difficult for you to patch me up without touching me."

"I took advantage though. Your skin is very soft."

Her breath left her lungs. She had no idea, none at all, how to respond to such honesty. Stupidly she bumbled her way into a word, it might have been "ok". Or "alright".

He shook his head, "And you're very beautiful, you know." The declaration was almost sad, as if he wished she were some other way.

She didn't know she was beautiful, actually. Perhaps her mother had said it when she was a small girl. But no one else. And when she considered her looks at all, she considered them to be entirely ordinary.

He huffed, a violent exhale of air through his nostrils, "Sorry." He raised a hand in the air and shook his head, "Very sorry."

She opened her mouth to respond, to tell him not to be sorry, but he continued talking and she didn't get the chance, "If it starts bleeding again, you'll need to redo the bandage."

His voice was near, she looked up at him, _he_ was near. They were inches apart.

 _Your skin is very soft._

She glanced down at her good hand and found it was reaching for him. It moved independently of her mind, as though her brain couldn't conceive of acting in such a forward manner but her body couldn't stop. This man was a magnet and her skin was a billion cells of iron filings floating through the air towards him.

 _You're very beautiful._

She laced her fingers with his, pressed her thumb into the centre of his palm, mirrored his earlier actions - tracing lines through the fleshy valleys on the back of his hand. His skin was not so soft. It was brittle, a little abrasive to the touch. It was nice and she looked up with a smile, fully intent on telling him so.

The pesky words wouldn't form though. Siding with her brain, apparently.

Blue eyes travelled slowly from where their hands were joined, up her arm, torso, chest and neck to consider her face. She felt them as keenly as a touch.

Then he looked at her mouth. Except he wasn't looking, it was nothing so prosaic as that. Staring, perhaps, but even that wasn't a sufficient description. Her mouth was a red, ripe apple and he was starving. There was a faint shadow of blonde stubble across his jaw. She could see it as their heads moved together, what little light there was caught the strands of gold. Then she could feel it, against her chin and her cheek and at the edges of her lips when they parted to allow his tongue the access it demanded.

It wasn't the kiss of a practiced seducer. He hadn't licked his lips to take away the dryness. There was the occasional hint of teeth. Slightly too much tongue. But the artlessness didn't matter - not even one little bit - because the kiss was warm and strong and _sure_. He kissed her as though he would die if he didn't. And she liked it, liked how much he wanted her and how willing he was to show it. He was at the tips of her fingers and in the racing thrum of her heart and the beats of arousal between her legs.

She pressed her breasts to his chest, not consciously, of course, because she didn't think in those terms. It wouldn't have occurred to her to press breasts to chest in an effort to be alluring or some other ridiculous concept invented by men to describe women. She did it because she had to get closer to this man. Even no space between them was entirely too much space.

His hand pulled away from hers and crept around her side, under her t-shirt, caressing the skin at her hip. He found one divot at the base of her spine, pressed his thumb into its shape. His hand skirted across to circle its twin, before settling possessively in the small of her back. They were already tight together but he pulled her closer. Briefly she felt, perhaps hoped, she might burst through into him; rain into an empty sky. He nipped at her bottom lip and it was glorious. She reciprocated and he moaned in pleasure. The handsome man with the blue eyes was moaning and it was all because of her. She smiled against his lips and pressed her tongue forwards to let him know just how much she liked that noise. He obliged and did it again.

Her hands were behind his ears then and threaded in that hair. All that lovely hair, pushing it and pulling it in all manner of directions. It was silk through her fingers. She dropped her hands down and pulled the shirttails from his trousers. Her palms wrapped around his hips and then she slid them upwards. She wanted to rest them on those broad shoulders, to feel the sheer size of him and cling to his neck. Play Scarlett to his Rhett. But they'd barely made it halfway to their destination when he pulled away.

For moments, minutes, possibly hours, they stood – not in silence – but panting. Looking at one another, amidst a soundtrack of psychopathic heavy breathing. She wanted to put her hands on her knees, ask for a tinfoil blanket and a litre of ice-cold water.

A little bubble of laughter rose up and popped in the air in front of her, "oh, gosh."

He didn't laugh. He didn't even smile.

She didn't care, as long as he kissed her again, and soon. She held out her hand. They'd done everything backwards but there probably wasn't going to be a better time to make the proper introductions.

The idea seemed like a silly one when he shook his head, looking at her outstretched limb with complete contempt.

"Hey! Where the hell have you two gone?!" The barman shouted into the black abyss of the car park.

His head still shook, blue eyes blinking furiously. He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck and shouted a response, "We're over here."

"What the fuck are you two doing?"

He muttered something and then shouted back, "First aid. We've finished."

"Right! Hurry up then, I have news about the room!" She stepped around the open door of the boot and into the light cast by the pub. The barman waved her over with wide eyes that betrayed his impatience.

She looked back, wanting to say something, anything about the kiss, but her non-doctor was tidying up the back of his Land Rover, apparently focusing on everything and anything except her.

"Thank you." He didn't respond, he didn't even look in her direction, "I said thank you!" He ignored her completely.

"Please hurry the hell up, it's bloody cold out here!"

She looked over to the waving figure in black, his white skin practically glowing through the gloom.

Perhaps they'd talk about it in the pub. Perhaps he was as startled by it as she was. Perhaps he needed a moment to compose himself. Perhaps he was as unlikely as her to engage in an extraordinary kiss with someone he'd just met.

A car door slammed and an engine started. She spun around just in time to see him drive out of the car park and away up the lane. Around a corner and out of sight.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had happy holidays. Thank you for the reviews, they are_ _very_ _gratefully received._

 _Some M rated sexual language below._

Normally when Anthony Strallan woke up in the morning he felt every one of his fifty-one years coursing through his body. His muscles twitched, his shoulders were sore, his stomach was unsettled.

By repetition of some unspoken mantra that he must _get on_ , for there was no better choice, he would drag his complaining limbs out of bed and into the land of the living. It took sheer force of will. The danger of lying in bed, of falling into some impenetrable sea of despair, was one he knew all too well. The challenges of a new day, the frustrations, were infinitely preferable to the consuming darkness of giving up. Every morning was a battle. He was winning, but only just, because the battle still raged.

Not so on this particular morning.

First of all, he had a dream, not a nightmare. He was on a tropical beach (even this was remarkable, given that he estimated the temperature of his bedroom to be -10 degrees and falling), dancing with a small woman clad in some exotic scrap of bright fabric which dipped low between her breasts and revealed her slender legs. She had wavy blonde hair and sparkling brown eyes. They went wide as he kissed her, and closed when she started to kiss him back.

Second of all, he had a raging erection. There was nothing to do with it - other than go for a shower - but he couldn't remember the last time he had woken up in the morning feeling aroused. It had been years. Sexual desire of any kind had eluded him.

And yet, here he lay, looking up at the cracks in his ceiling with a wonderfully heavy heat between his legs. Another piece of his life was back, one more piece of the incomplete jigsaw. He'd never be whole, but the prospect of getting up and getting on didn't seem quite as daunting as usual.

He'd stolen this little moment of optimism from the woman at the pub.

The previous evening, as he was driving through the village on his way back to Locksley House, his headlights had provided a flash of her walking away from the library. Somehow both sad and resolute. A bird of paradise, entirely out of place in this gloomy corner of Yorkshire. He should've carried on home and for a few minutes he did exactly that. But then he found himself indicating and turning in the road with such ferocity that his tyres screeched tread marks onto the road. He arrived back in the village just in time to catch sight of her entering the Wilberforce. After several minutes sitting in the Land Rover conducting internal deliberations when he already knew what the outcome would be, he followed her inside.

It might have been different if she hadn't cut her hand. Or if she hadn't been so witty, so ready to tease, so easy to be around and so utterly beautiful. But she was all of those things and she did cut her hand and fate left them alone.

By taking advantage of her, by kissing her so inappropriately, he'd proved that at least one part of him was not as broken as he suspected.

He shouldn't have done it, of course. He was a bad bargain for any woman. But one so young and lovely? Certainly not. It was rude to drive off, but necessary. She'd probably have forgotten about it by now.

When he pulled back the covers the cold of the bedroom stole its way into the pocket of warmth he'd created, penetrating its way into his very bones. He barked out an expletive – _Christ!_ \- and fumbled into his dressing gown. He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck.

Mentally he moved 'install working central heating' to the top of his endless 'To Do' list, knowing it would be shifted down by the end of the day, ousted by more pressing considerations.

He padded across the hall and into the bathroom, hissing at the cold tiles under his feet. The water creaked audibly through the pipes and through the shower head. It would take several minutes to warm up. A slightly less tired looking man than usual look back at him in the mirror. He rubbed his thumb along his jawline, feeling the bristles and scowled at the razor perched on the side of the sink. It was his third day of sporting whiskers. Luckily they grew at a glacial pace and he decided he could put off the perilous task of shaving to another day. He didn't much fancy facing Anna's derision. Last time she said his chin looked like he'd run head first into an angry rosebush. To be fair, she wasn't wrong.

After his shower he dressed in his usual utilitarian garb. Sturdy jeans, shirt, jumper, Barbour jacket, thick socks and waterproof walking boots, which, no matter how often he cleaned them or brushed them, always had a thin layer of mud coating their surface.

When he came down the stairs and into the entrance hall it was a jolt to his system, a shock to the heart or a caffeine spike. Part of the reason he'd kept the house when he could've sold it a thousand times over and saved himself thousands in the process.

Portraits of the most recent Strallans adorned the walls. Illuminated by the winter light streaming through the large sash windows. His father and mother seated on a small sofa, Busby lying dutifully at his father's feet. His mother read a book - Wuthering Heights, as those who were familiar with the cover art of her favourite edition would realize, and his father studied the local paper.

Across the other side of the room, his Grandmother, looking sternly across the mosaic tiles. She looked brusk and efficient, which was fitting because, from what Anthony could remember that was exactly her character. One might have expected to find her in finery, as befitting the wife of local gentry, but she largely eschewed fashion; an imminently practical woman who founded the local hospital, built the village war memorial, the library and spearheaded the upgrade of all of the village water, electricity and amenities. It was little wonder her portrait was larger and more prominent than his grandfather's which was in the far corner of the room, a small picture of an old man in his dotage.

All the family he could remember were in this room and they'd all loved Locksley and contributed something to it. He would do the same. He would save this place from ruin.

Anna sat at the kitchen table nursing a mug of coffee whilst swiping the screen of her iPad.

"Good morning. John is already up on the roof."

"Thank you Anna." He headed through the pantry and to the back staircase.

"Anthony?" Anna had followed him through and held out a scarf. He was immediately suspicious of her motives. She reminded him on a near daily basis that she was 'not his Mother' so when she acted like one he knew to be on his guard.

"Thank you." He wrapped the fabric around his neck.

"Can you just make sure John doesn't do anything reckless and plummet to his death? It's been a really long time since I had a boyfriend and I quite like this one and I have a feeling that our relationship won't be best served by my having to scrape him off the driveway."

"I shall do my very best."

"Oh, oh –" She grabbed the back of his coat and he turned back, "And talk me up a bit."

"Anna, the man is practically living here, you don't need to be talked up."

"Do you really think so? You think he likes me?"

"You need more female friends."

"Why? I have you."

"Exactly."

And with that, he took the first six steps two at a time leaving the conversation behind. He shout of "be careful" bounced off the walls around him.

The wind buffeted his face as he opened the door onto the Locksley roofs. There was more than one roof, a fact he'd only discovered when he inherited the house and found it necessary to venture to the practical parts of the building. Bates had explained that nineteenth century properties usually had three or four pitched roofs divided by the supporting walls. They were entirely hidden from view by the height of the house and the gable roof and dormer windows.

This meant greater maintenance expenses. And perhaps most annoyingly, the roofs could be traversed by walking on the supporting walls. It was, as Anna's concern indicated, a perilous activity.

Bates, his architect, took great delight in bringing him up here to talk about the intricacies of the design and how the modern glass and steel extension would sit alongside the old building. Today was no exception; he was already across the other side of the house, crouched down and examining some aspect of the brickwork with an intense expression.

"Bates!"

"Morning Sir Anthony!"

"How the devil did you get over there?"

Bates stood up and brushed off the knees of his trousers, "You need to come around the left side." He drew an invisible map through the air with his finger, "then down the middle and over to the right."

"Christ." He held his hair off his forehead, "this is suicidal." Half the route took him along the edges of the gable roof and he'd have to skirt around one of the chimneys.

"I have every faith in you."

"You know that if I fall to my death your pay cheque dies with me?"

"I am acutely aware of that fact." He nodded as Anthony reached the mid-way point. He watched him inch around the tall chimneystack and offered some encouragement, "that's it."

On reaching the other side of the stack he had a daunting view over the gardens behind the house. He peered over the edge and the sheer drop which would end on the stairs leading up to the French doors on the rear terrace.

"Keep going Sir Anthony! Looking over the side won't aid your cause."

Finally he completed the journey.

"Well, I'm alive. It's a miracle."

"We've been up here six or seven times now Sir Anthony, you're practically an expert now. You'll be dancing your way back to _Step In Time_ soon."

"I bloody doubt that and how many times must I ask you just to call me Anthony?"

 _Sir_ Anthony was his grandfather and then his father. It might have been seven years, but he still couldn't get used to the idea that the title was his now and that it would die with him. It was a sad reminder of his past and his future. He wished he could cast it aside. Go back in time and be Anthony Strallan again, be as he was. But futile wishes achieved nothing.

"Just once more, as ever."

"Fine. Stubborn man. What are we looking at?"

Bates crouched and started in on a detailed explanation about brick erosion and the weight of the walls and floors of the first floor. He ran his hand along the bricks and, somewhat disturbingly, broke off a section of mortar and crumbled it into the air where it caught on the wind and blew away. He made shapes in the air with his hands. There were a few terms peppered amidst the speech that Anthony understood – 'load bearing', 'gable', 'skylight'. But there were far more that passed him by completely – 'bossages', 'boutant', 'lintel', 'springer' and at one point – 'squint', although he wasn't sure he'd heard that last one correctly.

"Bates!" Anthony ran a hand through his hair and raised his eyebrows, "in English, please?"

"You want the new ballroom to appear to float next to the old house?"

"Yes."

He had plans for Locksley – it was to be a boutique hotel and wedding venue. It would pay its way – finally – and provide work for people in the villages in the surrounding area. Part of the scheme was a striking glass extension, to house the wedding meals and dancing.

"It can be done. But this wall won't take the load. I hoped it might do, but on further examination, because of its age – well, it just won't. So we need a supporting column. It'll need to be steel and it'll need to run the height of the house. From where we stand –" He pointed and then angled his finger towards the ground, as if condemning someone to death, "right down."

"It'll break up the design lines?"

"No. We'll leave it exposed, I think it'll be a nice juxtaposition with the old brickwork, actually and the oak beams. The problem is – " Bates stood up, crossed his arms across his chest and rolled his lips into a thin line. Anthony had received a significant amount of bad news in his time and he knew the signs by heart. Sure enough, Bates continued, "it'll have to be custom made and fixed into place by a specialist team."

Anthony sighed, "How much?"

"Less than you think."

"But more than I have?" 

"I expect so."

"You know Bates, before I met you I thought that doctors and lawyers had the monopoly on being professional harbingers of doom, but I think I shall add architects to the list."

He chuckled and patted Anthony on the back.

The space marked out for the extension sat beside an ornamental pond. There was a copse of trees set artfully in the distance, a sunburst of oranges and yellows, vermillions and browns. A meadow of tall grass surrounded them, in the summer it was filled with wildflowers. Somewhere a bird sung and a sheep provided a chorus. This place gave so much; perhaps it was little wonder it needed so much as well.

"I'll have to find it then. Cut the budget for –" He wrinkled his nose, "I don't know. Something unimportant." Perhaps the central heating could wait a while longer.

"That sounds like a plan."

In their short acquaintance Anthony had established that Bates tried his very hardest to live by the mantra 'the customer is always right', except that his face, his body language and his tone of voice gave his true thoughts away. It was his tone of voice this time and his body language – he looked to the ground and shuffled on his feet.

"Bates, please do tell me what you really think."

"I think it's a fine plan –"

"But you think there might be a better one."

He shrugged, "you could downscale the idea."

"No." Anthony turned on his heel and set off back to the attic door.

"You would still have the ballroom but it doesn't _need_ to come up to the height of the house. That's a good design idea – it was my idea after all! - and I'm an architect: I like good design ideas, but practically it's not a requirement and if money is a problem -" He trailed off, the obviousness of the point speaking for itself.

"It isn't."

It was. The farm was finally profitable after five years of focused investment and modernization but it had gobbled up much of Anthony's capital – the money inherited from his father along with the estate and his own substantial savings from a career in the City.

He looked over his shoulder, Bates cast him a knowing look, "alright it is. But I can't cut corners. I won't, this must be perfect."

"Look, it's your house, it's your hotel, but you'd do well to remember that often the perfect is the enemy of the good."

They walked back down the stairs into the pantry. Bates didn't have any more aphorisms to offer and seemed content to let Anthony mull on the bad news. He needed to look his spreadsheets. Trim some fat, even though he knew that his figures were quite lean enough.

Bates ducked down when they entered the kitchen. He kissed Anna on the cheek and said, "see, nothing to worry about."

"I hate you going up there."

Anthony was in the process of taking off his coat and scarf when a fourth person entered the room.

"Ah, there you are! Gosh, this place is too large for me! I've been lost about eight times already!"

The voice was familiar. He turned, the navy blue wool wrapped halfway around his head. He pulled it all the way off to reveal a woman standing in the doorway to the room.

Small, with wavy blonde hair and brown eyes.

Anna was speaking, but there was a ringing in his ears and his heartbeat thumped at an alarming rate, so he didn't hear a word she said.

At first he was struck by the incongruity of seeing the woman from his dream in his kitchen. After all, this was not a tropical beach and she was wearing so much more than a flimsy kaftan, not to mention the fact that he was awake.

Bates went over to her and shook her hand. He held out his arm to point in Anthony's direction. Her head followed his gesture, finally turning towards him.

All the movements happened at a glacially slow pace, as though he was watching it happen after the fact in some sort of slow action replay.

Her eyes met his. Her lips parted, a flush breaking onto her cheeks like a wave running up white sand. The expression she wore was a mixture of surprise and horror. He furrowed his brow and blinked quite deliberately, as if he might erase her away, like some drug-induced vision.

Finally his slow, lumbering, clumsy brain worked through the confusion: the woman in the dream was the woman from the pub. The woman he'd kissed. And that woman was very, very real. And she was standing in his kitchen.

His stomach somersaulted and plummeted, presumably it had dropped from his body and was resting on the floor at his feet.

He made several abortive attempts at speaking. Stuttering out some consonants, perhaps a vowel.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He'd decided last night. The kiss was a fine experience – _such_ an inadequate word, it had been much more than fine, it was transformative – but it was over almost as soon as it began. The beginning would be the end. He was grateful for it and then he removed himself from it. Removed himself from temptation, from a situation which was unfair to her and likely to destroy him.

But instead she was in his kitchen.

She was ruining everything.

And with that thought, the shock transmuted to become a different emotion altogether: anger.

 _What the hell is she doing here?!_


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N Thank you for all the reviews, and hat-tip to the Baron for expanding my vocabulary._

The pub was darker now, almost empty. Edith perched back on the same stool she'd vacated, right next to his half-drunk glass of Scotch. A faint smudge of blood was beginning to show through the bandage, perhaps the consequence of not paying any attention at all to the injury when she was running her hands in his hair and up his back.

"The room's up at the big house."

She woke up from her contemplation, "excuse me?"

"The room. It's at the big house."

"The big house? Am I to spend the night in a cell?"

He arched a meticulously plucked eyebrow; a sharp point of jet black hair hanging menacingly over the edge of his eye, "what? You can afford to be picky now?"

"I suppose not."

"The big house is Locksley House. Anna runs the B&B operation up there – she's swinging by to pick you up on her way through, she shouldn't be long."

"Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr - " She hoped he'd provide her with a name. He did, reluctantly, "Thomas, Thomas Barrow."

"Edith Crawley."

Thomas eyed her hand suspiciously. Perhaps it was simply the custom around these parts not to shake hands.

Not so, although his version was perfunctory. Apparently it was only her mystery kisser who didn't want to engage in the traditional greeting.

"Is he coming back?"

Edith looked back to the door of the pub, willing him to appear, "I don't think so."

Thomas went to clear away the Scotch.

"I'll finish it." He eyed her suspiciously and she shrugged, "it would be a shame for it to go to waste."

It tasted of the kiss. Strong and masculine. Artless too, drumming its way down her throat and settling in her belly without any pretence of subtlety. She liked it for all the same reasons.

Usually it took her months and months to repel a man so completely. This one had taken leave of her in a matter of minutes.

She could ask Thomas. There was a fair chance that everyone in this village knew everyone else. She could find out his address, stomp up there and demand some answers.

Or, she could stop tilting at windmills.

Anna Smith was the epitome of cheerfulness, which considering she was on the wrong end of a ten-hour day as a rehabilitation nurse, was nothing short of remarkable. As it turned out, she was the part-time housekeeper, bed and breakfast manager and woman of all jobs at Locksley. It supplemented her woefully meager nurse's salary and she received room and board for free. Edith felt terribly guilty for adding to her burden in the off-season, when it was not unreasonable for her to expect a break from at least one of her myriad jobs.

But as Anna showed her around Locksley, explaining the various follies and foibles of the house ("that door never shuts properly", "a family of friendly mice have bedded down in here", "I have a theory this cupboard is haunted', 'the central heating is non-existent", "you have to run the shower for a long while before any hot water makes an appearance"), Edith realized she was one of those indomitable people who lived to be busy. Nothing would ever be too much trouble for her.

The bedroom Anna showed her to was spectacular, decorated in various shades of blue and an eclectic mixture of furniture from the 1920s up to present day. Anna lit the fire ("newspaper first, then a lattice of wood, then a few lumps of coal on top – light the paper, which will take the wood, which is hot enough to start the coal.") and talked Edith through the wifi ("the signal is patchy and weak"). Anna must have taken in Edith's bemused expression because she furrowed her chin and laughed, "don't worry, I'll show you everything again tomorrow. Get some sleep!"

Edith dreamt about blue lakes and kisses, burning dissertations and J Pearson's diaries - stacks of leather bound books nearby, but just out of reach.

Sleep, however, couldn't win the battle with the cold. The fire in her room had long burnt out and her chilled limbs screamed for warmth. When she finally heeded their call and crawled out of bed she was surprised she couldn't see her breath in front of her face. Someone had made it to the shower before her and used up most of the hot water. She put on jeans and layered up the few tops she'd thought to pack. She completed the outfit of many-garments with two pairs of socks, boots and her cashmere cardigan.

There was only one thing on her mind: tea. Preferably in massive quantities.

The previous evening Anna had pointed in the direction of the kitchen, explaining that it was at the back of the house. Edith took several wrong turns and tried numerous wrong doors - she discovered the library, the dining room, a linen cupboard. Eventually she was winding down a long corridor with durable red tiled flooring, the grandeur of the public parts of the residence giving way to white washed walls and red tiled floors. The kitchen had to be somewhere down this practical, basic corridor.

Tentatively she shouted into the void, "Anna?"

"In here Edith!"

She followed the voice into a large, old-fashioned room bookended by an enormous Aga on one side and a Belfast sink on the other. The morning light streamed in through the windows.

Anna sat at the table in the middle of the room, receiving a kiss from a man.

"Ah, there you are! Gosh, this place is too large for me! I've been lost about eight times already!"

"How did you sleep?"

"Well." She nodded.

Anna furrowed her brow, her lip curling as if she detected deception, "cold?"

"Only this morning." She responded, truthfully.

Anna grasped the arm of the man besides her, "this is the boyfriend I told you about last night. John - Edith, Edith - John." She waved her hand between them.

It was a struggle for John to tear his eyes from Anna, but he managed it, smiling, "very nice to meet you Edith, welcome to Yorkshire."

She'd been half aware of the other person in the room but she hadn't thought much of it. Why should she? When John pointed in his direction and said, "and this is Sir Anthony Strallan, the owner of this illustrious pile." she still didn't think much of it. It made sense for the owner to be here and for them to meet. An entirely ordinary occurrence. Landlord and lodger. Boarding house owner and guest.

But before she looked over, to put a face to the name, she suspected it wasn't so ordinary after all. The figure at the back of the kitchen was watching her, breathing heavily, rigid and still. The intensity of the gaze on her person was such that she could feel it. It seemed to have given the air between them a physical form; she could take it in her hands and shape it like clay.

Finally, she was looking at him and it all made sudden, horrible sense. The air left her lungs. This was a joke, it must be. Except he wasn't laughing. He looked as shocked as she felt. The house didn't need central heating: her blushes must be doing the job.

It couldn't be him? Surely not? _Sir_ Anthony? Lord of the bloody manor? The owner of the only property in the whole village with a room to rent? It was too much for it to be him.

But of course it was.

It hadn't been years since he'd driven away. This wasn't some long lost lover returning from The Front. Barely fourteen hours had passed since her tongue was in his mouth and her breasts had become acquainted with the contours of his chest. All the differences between this man and that one were markers only of a small passage of time. His beard was a little longer, the circles under his eyes had receded and his hair stood prouder off his forehead, freshly washed. Even if she'd had a genuine doubt, which she didn't, the eyes settled the case. Although gawping at her, as he was, he didn't have quite the same controlled persona as the non-doctor who'd tended her wound.

John and Anna must think her a madwoman, staring dumbly. She cast her eyes down to the table. She needn't have worried; John was whispering sweet nothings into Anna's ear. They appeared to have forgotten about the presence of other people in the world, let alone the room.

Relief came over her when Anthony started to speak, replaced quickly by apprehension when he failed to actually do so. He stuttered.

Edith decided to be brave and start them off. Perhaps make a joke - _we must stop meeting like this!_ \- _so much for a one kiss stand!_ \- _of all the country houses in all the world!_

She'd never had to do this - levity after a night of unexpected intimacy. Nights of unexpected intimacy simply weren't an occurrence with which Edith had any experience. As her mouth shaped its way into a smile, ready to launch into words designed to make light of their situation, he swept aside all her intentions.

His mouth shut. Lips thinned into a barely-there line. He took a hammer to the air between them and smashed it to pieces. His expression crystallised into one of such animosity that she actually took a step back.

"Right!" Anna clapped her hands and moved expertly around the kitchen, "I have a smoked haddock kedgeree on the stove for my intrepid steeplejacks." She shoved a pile of plates into Edith's arms, "you'll stay for breakfast Edith? I can run you down to the library afterwards on my way to my first appointment?"

She stole a glance at Anthony. He was frowning at his feet, arm across his stomach as though he might double over with some complaint at any moment.

"That sounds nice Anna, thank you."

"Excellent. Set the table then. John - tea and toast. Anthony - fill the kettle, fetch some orange juice."

Anna conducted them like an orchestra.

All the while Anthony pointedly, doggedly, determinedly avoided looking at Edith. He opened the cupboard to show her where the mugs were kept, his eyes fixed on the handle. Placemats were passed from his hand to hers, he found their pattern of such interest he chose not to look up from considering its intricacies.

And then they were all seated at the small kitchen table. Edith spooned some of the delicious concoction onto her plate and passed it around to John, who helped himself to so much that he earned a scold. Anna had to prise the bowl from his hands to serve herself and Anthony.

The tinkling of cutlery meeting with crockery filled the large room. There was the clearing of a throat. The slurping of a drink, followed by a muffled apology. Knife on china. Tea into mug. A slosh of milk. Salt from shaker.

Edith's eyes darted from John, who was preoccupied with looking over at Anna, to Anthony. He seemed to be pushing his food around his plate, occasionally spearing a piece of haddock. The silence was full; the walls were probably cracking with the pressure of containing it. It was suffocating.

She couldn't bear it any longer. She wanted to address a question to Anthony (or, Sir Anthony, she supposed), perhaps to ask him about his day, or his house, or why he'd kissed her and why he was so determined not to mention it. She very nearly did. As her mouth moved to make the words, tongue pressed to the back of her teeth, he looked up. Those blue eyes flashed at her face and immediately retreated, focusing once again on the fascinating contents of Anna's breakfast.

She swallowed back her curiosity. She would pay no undue attention to this man, who so clearly wanted nothing to do with her. She turned instead to her left, "So, John, what do you do for a living?'

"I'm an architect. I have a small practice in Yorkshire - _Bates and Kent_. Mostly we do dwelling house extensions, modern additions to period property. Sir Anthony's project is our first commercial venture because it's his intention to turn this place into a very fine hotel."

She started to make a further enquiry, to go about the necessities for a conversation but she was rudely interrupted.

"How long do you intend to stay?" The words shot across the table, across her bows too. At least he looked at her as he asked the question, mouth still thin.

She glanced to Anna, "as long it takes to complete my research. That could be a day or two, possibly a few weeks, even a couple of months. It's hard to be precise. Anna said -" she trailed off, not wanting to speak out of school.

Anna finished the thought, "I told Edith she could stay as long as she wanted." She stirred a spoon of sugar into her tea, "you said that it wasn't a problem last night? The hotel needs all the cash it can get?"

He was rubbing his thumb along the grooves in the table, the tip was white. He spoke his response through gritted teeth, "But - I didn't think - I didn't know – I -" he grappled for words, "The works!"

"The works?" Anna asked.

"We can't have her here during the works."

His voice was different too. Brittle and desperate. Edith shifted back in her seat. Last night they shared a moment of profound connection - she hadn't imagined it or dreamed it, of this she was sure. And now, _now_ , she was - _her!_ \- an object of annoyance to be removed from his life, and certainly from his house.

John said, " Sir Anthony, you're well ahead of yourself. The works won't start until the new year at the very earliest."

His head swung from Anna to John, ignoring Edith in between, "Surely there are preparations to be undetaken?!"

"Yes. But I doubt Edith's going to get in the way of a couple of blokes with laser measurers." Bates laughed.

"There's new wiring and central heating. That's going to cause a mess. Plasterers too."

He was positively frantic to be rid of her. A lump formed in her throat. She forced some food down. Feigned disinterest.

John shrugged, "most of the rooms Edith's going to frequent can be left until last." He turned to her with a reassuring smile and she wished for all the world she'd kissed someone like him instead of the stoic, angry man across from her, "And I suspect that you'll put up with a bit of disruption in exchange for a roof over your head?"

She put on her most breezy voice, "absolutely I will."

She cast a brilliant smile over at Anthony, but he'd retreated back into his shell, pushing rice around his plate.

"What's your research about Edith?" John asked.

"Well, I've come to Locksley to try and find the original source of a quote for my PhD thesis. It's from a diary which is stored in the archive at the library - supposedly anyway." She started to butter a piece of toast, "but my overall academic focus is on post-first world war feminism, or more precisely, post-vote feminism and the shape and scope of the women's movement once they'd achieved their primary aim, which was, of course, suffrage."

For the first time since she'd set foot in the room, Edith was at ease. Once she got started on her subject of study, she could command a room with the intricacies of time and place and theme. Gregson might think little of her thesis but he couldn't take away the scope of the information in her head and all of the thoughts that rattled around within, the avenues of arguments, the sparks of inspiration.

Perhaps Anthony sensed that she was wading her way back to solid ground and saw another way to attack, to try and push her out. Just as she started in on her explanation of the schisms in post-war feminism, he interrupted, "What does any of that matter?"

Her head snapped up, almost surprised he was still in the room, "I'm sorry?"

"Anthony!" Anna hissed.

He was undeterred, "What does a quote from some hundred year old diary, or the dynamics of the feminist cause a hundred years ago matter?" His voice was flat and he gave a lopsided shrug.

John cleared his throat and asked for the butter. The dish was handed through the air between them; tumbleweed between two cowboys, hands steady in the air above their guns.

"I'm not sure that one can look at the detailed study of any subject and demand some sort of justification for it. Knowledge is its own justification."

He arched an eyebrow and poured more tea, "That is not an answer. That's just something academics say to defend their existence, and make themselves feel better about the fact that they don't build anything, or create jobs, or grow the economy. The truth is - " He put the teapot down and narrowed his eyes at her, "it doesn't matter."

"Anthony! What on earth has gotten into you?! He's just grumpy Edith, because John made him go on the roof and gave him bad news about the house. Ignore him." Neither of them looked at Anna as she spoke, trying desperately to explain her employer's rudeness.

It was hard to believe, almost impossible, that this was the same man from last night. The one who'd been so kind, warm and affectionate. She couldn't imagine what she'd done to offend him and it didn't much matter because it was unforgivable to speak to her this way. Not to mention the fact that he was utterly wrong in what he said - that might've offended her most of all.

Edith had read thousands, hundred of thousands, of words about the value of historical study. She could've called on any number of scholars, academics, authors, journalists, politicians in framing her response. But she didn't.

She touched the white bandage at the base of her thumb and took a deep breath. And for once, possibly for the first time ever, Edith Crawley said precisely what _she_ thought - no more, no less.

"Let's start here shall we? It's nothing short of moronic to suggest academia doesn't build anything, create jobs or grow the economy when a large part of this nation's fame and wealth is built on the heritage of its universities and given that those universities employ tens of thousands of people and educate many more. Most of the people growing your precious economy started out, one way or another, in the hallowed halls of academia as undergraduates - the bankers, the lawyers, the architects – " She waved a hand in John's direction and he saluted with his mug, "and, of course, the hoteliers. Because you did go to University, _Sir_ Anthony? I'd guess as much from that clipped English accent of yours, and the picture of Christ's College in your library would suggest I'm right. And as Cambridge doesn't offer a degree in hotels or farm management, I'm guessing you spent your time there learning about all those things that don't matter."

He frowned and went to interrupt but she raised her hand to silence him. Anna smothered a giggle of shock.

"But that's not my primary argument. Knowledge _is_ important. Historical knowledge in particular. It's important to understand the past. To know where we've come from and how we arrived at our destination. In my case, to chart the intricacies - the losses and the successes - of the women's movement, which in turn provides a much-needed guide to why women's rights are where they are in modern Britain."

She paused - for effect - took a sip of orange juice, "To make good choices moving forwards it's vital to explore the choices that bought us here and the historic views and opinions that have shaped our society. Informed decisions are good decisions. History informs. _That_ is why it matters. The value of something is not necessarily determined by a number on the bottom of a spreadsheet or the digits in a bank account."

He gawped again, and she was pleased – thrilled - to have shut him up and replaced all the anger, however temporarily, with some other emotion.

"Blimey. Breakfast and a show. You've convinced me Edith." John looked from Edith to Anthony, "And as much as I'd like to stay for round two, I've an appointment in Skipton. Walk me out?" Anna followed him from the room.

Edith continued her breakfast, finished her rapidly cooling tea.

"My Father was at Christ's."

Well, that was hardly the point.

He cleared his throat, "I went to Selwyn."

She swallowed a small smile of triumph.

"I studied mathematics."

She smirked and had to look back up at him after that, "and no one could ever accuse the mathematicians of being interested in academia for academia's sake."

"It has lots of practical applications!"

"So does history!"

There was a moment - blink and miss it - a brief flicker of warmth in his eyes; she thought they'd reached a détente and she was reminded anew how very handsome he was.

Then he mumbled some annoyance and looked away, "it's hardly the same thing."

With that she was out of her seat; it rocked precariously. She shoved her plate into the sink and fetched up Bates's and Anna's too.

 _Infuriating man!_

Anna breezed back into the kitchen, "Ready to go Edith?"

"Yes. Let me get my things."

She left the room without looking back.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N Thank you so much for the reviews._

Most of his breakfast remained in front of him, but his appetite was entirely gone. He took a couple of meager bites; mainly to avoid the reprimand he knew must be coming.

But he'd known Anna long enough to know she wouldn't give up and, sure enough, she cleared her throat.

He glanced in her direction, "When you look at me like that, you remind me of my mother."

Anna stood beside the table, staring imperiously down at him, hand on hip.

"What the hell was that about?"

"And now you sound like my mother."

She arched an eyebrow, "well, good. Mrs Hughes told me your mother was a woman of great intelligence and strong character and what you need right now is a woman of great intelligence and strong character to knock some sense into you."

"What do you mean?" He took two large gulps of orange juice, he knew precisely what she meant.

She pointed, "don't do that. I know you Anthony Strallan. I know that tactic, do not avoid the issue. You know precisely what I'm talking about."

"I don't like academics."

"Rubbish."

"I don't." He stood to put his plate in the sink, "Besides, it was only a lively debate."

"You attacked her whole way of life. That was not a debate."

There was no chance he'd admit it, but Anna was right.

He'd wanted to unsettle Edith, to disrupt her existence, as she'd disrupted his. He was incensed at the sheer unfairness of her being here. A beautiful woman he could never have, let alone keep. He wanted her to have a measure of his burden, for the pain to be shared: she'd caused it, after all, and he didn't see why she shouldn't get some of it back.

It backfired. The argument only served to highlight what he suspected the previous evening at the pub - she wasn't just beautiful but clever too. Majestic, even, when lining up the pillars of an opponent's contentions and knocking them down one by one.

All he'd achieved was to underline more clearly the extent of his attraction and thus, his loss.

"She seemed more than able to defend herself. I think you were even amused at one point."

"I was." Anna rounded on him, "But that doesn't make me any less concerned now." He saw her hand go to his wrist. Her voice softened, "I thought you'd got over this - the anger, the bile, lashing out at people?"

"I have!"

Anna's eyes widened, "apparently not!" She gestured at Edith's vacated chair, "you talked to her like you talked to me when we first met. You practically spat your words across the table at her. It was all eerily familiar."

Anthony looked suitably sheepish. It embarrassed him now, to think how he'd treated Anna. He thanked God every day that she hadn't given up on him.

He tucked his hand into his pocket, shoulder rounded. He scuffed a shoe along the floor. The truth wasn't an option - _I kissed her and it was magnificent so I need her gone_.

"I don't like new people."

"That was true seven years ago." She shook her head, concerned, "but not any more. You're very chummy with John and you get along with Mr Carson and Mrs Hughes. You like the gardener and the farm boys. The village has taken you to heart and I think it's reciprocal. I was even going to brave introducing you to the Wilberforce's very sullen, very hostile new barman."

Anthony had already met him, but Anna had no way of knowing that fact.

"Fine then, I like _some_ new people."

"Why not Edith?"

Dissembling had never been Anthony's strong suit. Anna waited in silence for his answer.

"It's not that I don't like her, precisely."

"You tried to find any number of excuses to get her to leave Locksley and then you told her, her work doesn't matter."

He blurted out some attempt at an explanation, "She just turned up without any warning!"

"Anthony!" She scoffed, "We've run a B&B for five years. In case you haven't noticed, that's what guests do - they turn up!"

"They book!"

"Only sometimes."

"They come during the season!" There might as well have been literal straws flying through the air in front of him, inches from his outstretched fingers, his grasping at them was so obvious.

Scowling, Anna turned her attention to the table, she swept up a few errant breakfast crumbs, cleared away the last of the cups and then wiped the table down with small jerky motions, all the while she talked.

Her voice was a little lower, her words a little faster, her annoyance was apparent, "I telephoned you yesterday to ask you if you were happy to have a guest out of season and you said you were. You said we needed the money. This has _nothing_ to do with the fact she's here out of season, or without a booking, or any of that. There's something else going on here. If you don't want to tell me: fine. Absolutely fine. Don't tell me." She threw the dirty cloth in to the sink and faced him square on, "but you _will_ stop picking fights with Edith and you will apologise."

He laughed out his refusal, "No."

"So help me God, Anthony you will."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Why? What does it matter? I dare say she doesn't care one jot what I think about her?" Because he was a fool, he hoped he was wrong about that.

"She is a guest here and I will not have her feeling unnecessarily uncomfortable. I will also not be responsible for policing your attitude towards her, I am no longer paid to do that thoroughly unpleasant job. I thought it was one I would never have to do again. We run a bed and breakfast, I need to know I can trust you to be civil."

He raised his voice, "I don't want to apologise. I don't want to be civil. I don't want anything to do with that woman. I don't want her anywhere near me." Four statements that were all entirely true and all entirely false at the same time.

"I don't care what you want." Anna shouted back at him. The row reverberating around the tiled walls. A bird took flight outside the window.

"You do realise you work for me?"

"Yes and I will walk out of this house and this job and not look back if you don't do as I ask."

They both turned towards the door of the room where Edith stood, bag in hand, clearing her throat. She looked, resolutely, entirely in Anna's direction, "sorry to interrupt. I'm ready when you are, Anna."

Anna's eyes bored expectantly into the side of his head.

He cleared his throat, "Miss Crawley, it appears we may have started off on the wrong foot."

She scowled, arms crossed, finally turning to him, "the wrong foot? Was that what we started off on, Sir Anthony?"

It wasn't really. The kiss was, in some ways, entirely right, but he couldn't have her thinking that, "Yes -" He paused to emphasise the words, to deliver them with a precision that ensured they hit their target, "entirely - the wrong - foot."

Her eyes darted to the window and then back, "And?"

"And, I apologise." He took a deep breath, "I very much hope we can be -"

Such a range of words he could've chosen at that moment, he had the sense it was important, that this one word might shape everything to come.

 _Friends_. _Lovers_.

Anthony could hardly remember the last time he considered making a friend, but it was nothing compared to the length of time since he'd considered making a woman his lover.

"- civil."

He nodded, utterly unsatisfied with his selection. He wished he'd allowed for a little more than that - cordiality perhaps - something less than friendship, and far less than lovers, but not so remote as civil.

A terrible word. The stuff of domestic wars.

"I hope we can be civil." The repetition didn't assist. If anything it sounded colder, the ten feet between them was ten yards and then miles and miles. The kitchen was cold, despite the Aga which had been heating the house since the 1960s.

"OK."

And then she was gone. Anna squeezed his shoulder on her way out, leaving him entirely alone.

The quiet of the kitchen enveloped him. He returned to his seat, folding forwards, elbow on knee, head in hand. Palpitations assaulted his heart, the edges of his vision blurred. It had been sometime since he'd had to employ his exercises, but the familiar routine came back to him. His eyes sought out the kitchen tile beneath his feet and then traced around two sides of it - _breathe in_ \- and then around the next two sides - _and out_. He repeated the cycle. Muscles started to loosen; his pulse slowed to a steady beat.

Soft footsteps barely announced themselves.

"I did what you asked, I hope you're –" But it wasn't Anna looking back at him, but Edith, silhouetted in the door, frowning fiercely.

"Miss Crawley." Foolish, he realized, to think Anna could ever be so silent arriving in this room, which she'd long considered her particular domain.

His stupid, ridiculous heart hoped she'd come to persuade him out of his desire for civility, to talk him up the scale of what they could be to one another. Far, far up the scale.

"I don't accept."

"Excuse me?"

"Your apology, I don't accept it." He furrowed his brow, "you only offered it because Anna threatened you."

"Ah - " He rubbed the back of his neck, "you heard that."

"Your voice carries, Sir Anthony."

There was a time when attack was not his response to every uncomfortable situation. He could conciliate, he was known for it, but that version of him was long gone, "It's unconscionably rude to eavesdrop, you know."

The sarcasm burst through the seams of her reply, "Oh yes, _my_ rudeness has been quite unforgiveable."

She threw her arms up and paced backwards and forwards a couple of times. She swung around to look straight at him, "do you want me gone?"

 _No._

 _Yes._

This was the opportunity. He should say it.

 _Yes_.

 _No._

He croaked out a reply, "What gives you that idea?"

"It was difficult to discern given how subtle you've been about it. I mean, you practically begged John to give you some reason to kick me out! I'm half expecting to wake up tomorrow morning to find a gang of builders in my room, removing wallpaper and pulling up the carpets. And then there's what you said to Anna –" Her voice faltered, but she managed a credible imitation of his voice, "' _I don't want anything to do with that woman. I don't want her anywhere near me_.'"

"Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves."

"Yes, apparently today is not the day to disprove that particular aphorism." She folded her arms, " _So_ , do you want me gone?"

A curl of her hair had escaped from the rest, it waved its own path across her forehead and skirted around the side of her eye, a gilded frame for the shades of brown.

"Anna would quit." He offered, meekly.

She nodded furiously, "Oh, of course, of course. And since I assume she's the only woman in the western world insane enough to work for such a, such a –" He winced, waiting for the insult, but it never came.

She continued, "Well, you can't afford to lose her, I suppose. However vexing the price you must pay."

"Anna is a vital part of the machinery around here and if you go -" The hanging vowel dropped into the space between them.

"Fine then. But I want to be clear: I do not accept your apology and as far as I'm concerned you can shove your civility as well. I'd sooner have your hostility. At least that would be something."


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N I am sorry for the delay in posting. This chapter has given me the run around and that was compounded by having to replace my laptop this weekend. Thank you so much for the reviews, they keep me going._

Edith stood outside the library, staring at the polished bronzed handle. It was difficult to believe she was in this exact place only fourteen hours earlier. It was as though she'd experienced decades in that short span of time, she half-expected to see a weary seventy year-old reflected in the glass of the door. Instead she observed her own reflection, weary but still young.

The library was quiet. The reception desk unmanned and there wasn't a soul in sight. The map just inside the entrance pointed the visitor to the different sections – romance, crime, paranormal, history, travel – the toilets were marked and the fire exits, but there was no mention of an archive. Sir Anthony might yet get his wish, perhaps there was nothing to find here and she'd be back in London before tea.

A small efficient looking woman clad in various shades of grey appeared from behind one of the shelves, carrying a large and precariously balanced stack of books. She inhaled sharply when she saw Edith hovering by the door and gravity finally won the battle, the books scattered across the floor around her feet.

"Oh, bother!" A beautiful Scottish accent emerged, "Give me a moment please, dear."

Edith dumped her laptop case and book bag on the library counter and launched at the ground to assist, "I'm sorry, I scared you. I should've made my presence known."

"I was in a world of my own, updating the shelves, some of these are quite good, but they've not been borrowed in years. And then there are others –" She held up a copy of ' _How to Help Your Husband Get Ahead_ ' – "which are perhaps better confined to the attic. I'll keep them in the catalogue of course, retrieve them if they're specially requested."

"On the off chance a managing housewife needs some advice on pushing her husband up the career ladder?"

"Precisely. You never can tell, you know." Manoeuvring behind the counter she organised the books into two neat piles. "If you'd told me ten years ago that the world would go mad over sparkling vampires and multi-billionaires with a fixation on blindfolds and whips I'd have dismissed you out of hand. There's no predicting the reading public." She took a deep breath and smiled warmly, "Now then, I'm Elsie Hughes – librarian - how can I help you, Miss -?"

"Crawley. Edith, I mean. Call me Edith. I was hoping I'd be able to gain access to the library archive, if there still is one."

"Goodness. I've been here nearly twenty years and you're the first person ever to ask." She took a ring of keys from the wall, "Follow me dear and, brace yourself."

They wound through the stacks to the back of the library and an ornate wooden door. There was a thick layer of dust on the handle and the Mrs Hughes brushed it off onto her black skirt with a tut, four dusty finger prints across her knee. She levered her hips into the door and pushed her weight against it.

It gave way with an ominous creak straight out of a cheesy horror movie. None of this boded well. The stairs plunged into a black abyss.

They stepped into the small space behind the door at the top of the stairs.

Mrs Hughes craned her neck and said, "Where is that – I can't see – dear, there's a light around here somewhere."

Edith reached over Mrs Hughes's shoulder and pressed the only switch she could see, half expecting a room of dead bodies to be illuminated. The light flickered, as if considering its options, and finally succumbed to the command of the electricity.

"Ah, there. Excellent, I didn't much fancy risking a broken neck. This way, dear."

A smile crossed Edith's lips. There was only one way. Down.

Any committed student of history has been in their fair share of archives. But for students of the top universities they're organised affairs. Well run and comparatively well funded, with the guiding hand, ordinarily, of a dictatorial archivist ensuring the paramountcy of order and preservation.

The archive before her was not the sort to which Edith was used; a fact betrayed by her gasp when she reached the final step and entered the basement room.

There was so much to take in she could only process it bit by bit. First of all: boxes. Seemingly hundreds of boxes, all various sizes, cluttering the two shelves running down the centre of the room and stacked up against the walls like cheap skyscrapers. Then there was the paper: sheets of it in haphazard piles, edges browned and curling at the corners like beckoning half-dead fingers. It was breaking out of the tops and the sides of some of the boxes, refusing orderly containment. Finally there was the dust: everywhere, caking the whole room. A deep breath had her coughing and spluttering.

It took a few minutes to appreciate the heat, she was already peeling off her cardigan as she asked the question, "why is it so hot?!"

"The boiler for the library, the school and the local shop is the other side of this wall." Mrs Hughes tapped the exposed brickwork behind them, "It is belting out a fair amount of heat, isn't it?"

"Yes, a fair amount." She pulled her first t-shirt layer over her head.

"I'm sorry it's such a mess." Mrs Hughes continued, "I hasten to add, it was like this when I took the job twenty years ago. I just haven't been able to get down here to try and sort things out."

"It's hardly your fault. It's an enormous job, most collections this large have at least one archivist, possibly two."

"What are you looking for?"

"A diary." She pushed her hair away from her face, sweat beaded on her brow, "I suppose I shall start in this corner over here and work my way around."

Mrs Hughes was startled, "You're not serious? It'll take weeks – months, probably, and the diary might not even be here."

"I have to try. I can't go back to London without at least trying." She thought of Michael Gregson's smarmy smile and the disdain with which he'd held up her thesis, "I can't go back to London."

It was silly and irrational and Edith knew it, but she had the sense that if she could figure out what Pearson had meant, if she could contextualise, everything else might fall into place. A ridiculous notion - this was a nineteen-word quote in an 80,000 word thesis - but she grabbed onto the idea and held on as though it were a life raft in the middle of the ocean.

"Well, dear, if you want to stay, of course you're more than welcome. I shall leave you to it. Shout up if you need anything."

Mrs Hughes bustled away and Edith sat down on the worn carpet, pulled the first box between her legs and begun to wade through the documents.

Over the next few days her whole life contracted to a space just large enough to fit the Locksley library archive. She arrived at 8.55 am and left when Mrs Hughes locked up at 6.15 pm. She walked back to Locksley and reviewed her notes. She hadn't found the diary yet, but she'd come across pages of interesting material during the search. She analysed it and stored it away in the recesses of her laptop for future consideration.

In the evenings she took speedy suppers and sent off short emails to concerned family members. Michael Gregson enquired about her whereabouts and she ignored him, feeling a petulant sense of triumph as the delete key dispatched the email into the whirlpool of her trash.

In the moments when she paused for a second her busy brain set off on its usual destructive course. It made continual and insipid jibes about the quality of her work and the futility of the exercise. Gregson had given her self-doubt a mantra it could repeat over and over – hopelessly derivative.

To make matters that much worse Anthony Strallan added another element into the mix. Not only were her intellectual abilities hopelessly inadequate, but so too were her social and romantic ones.

She'd shared the kiss of a lifetime with the man and he'd taken against her almost straight away. It was all the insecurities of her teenage years come to horrid fruition: Sybil was married with a child on the way, Mary was beautiful and stringing on at least three men at any one time, and she was on her own, unable to find anyone to love her and love in return. The more a man got to know her, the less he liked. Anthony Strallan had simply taken the usual process and short-handed it, wound up at the same conclusion the others had reached, but without the mess of a relationship in between.

There was a spectre constantly just behind her back, looming. The constant niggling fear: _you will be nothing more than a lonely failure_.

The first weekend at Locksley was the hardest, because the easy distraction of busying herself at the archive was not available, and there were only so many times she could read and re-read her notes, or edit the chapters of her dissertation.

To compound matters, it was harder to avoid Anthony. She saw him walking along the corridor to his room and bumped into him when she was having breakfast with Anna - he dropped his head with a few platitudes and scurried from the room. From her bedroom window she gazed down on him striding purposefully across Locksley's lawns, like some twenty-first century Mr Knightley, the breeze catching in his hair. On Sunday afternoon she set up shop in the dining room and watched him remonstrating with Mr Bates on the back terrace about money and load-bearing walls. He caught her spying. There was a moment of warmth in his expression before it was shuttered away, with a bow of his head he maneuvered the conversation out of sight and out of earshot.

Edith learnt very quickly that, when it came to Sir Anthony Strallan, out of sight never meant out of mind.

When Monday morning arrived again Edith was enormously relieved that she could return to the archive and immerse herself once again in the search for Pearson.

The unattractive sound of her unconcealed yawn filled the hall and she grabbed for the bathroom door, only to find it was already opening. She yelped and stepped back, finding she was faced with Sir Anthony's large form. He wore a navy bathrobe, exposing a large measure of chest and chest hair, thick and the same lovely shade of blonde as that on his head. It was a moment before she thought to stop considering the intricacies of his torso and met his eye.

"Gosh!" His face was peppered with bloody slabs of toilet paper. She swallowed a laugh, "did you shave with a machete?!"

His jaw stiffened, "it's cruel to laugh at the afflicted."

She rolled her eyes, "oh please." The next words darted out of her mouth like a viper after prey, "The only thing you're afflicted with is stupidity."

His brows went into his hair and she fastened her hand across her mouth. It crossed her mind to apologise, the words were formed but she pushed them away.

"I'm not sure I deserved that."

"It was, perhaps, a little unfair." He would not hear the word 'sorry' from her lips, although, truthfully, she thought he was many things, but stupid was not one of them.

"Generous of you."

With that, she assumed they'd exhausted their minuet stores of chitchat and that he would vacate the bathroom doorway so that she could shower and start her day.

He seemed determined even to prove her wrong in her unarticulated thoughts and asked, "How is your research going?"

She folded her arms, "You don't need to do that –"

"What?"

"Make small talk. I know you don't really want to have a conversation with me, so don't act as though you do."

His mouth opened, words teetering on the edge of his bottom lip, perhaps points of disagreement. She half hoped he would disagree – to tell her she had it all wrong. Instead he shook his head and gave her a cold smile, stepping away from the doorway and heading towards his bedroom.

She had a foot on the cold tile when his voice drew her back into the corridor.

"Miss Crawley, I -" He paused.

Full of possibilities that simple ' _I_ '; it positively burst with them.

A heady mixture of regret and hope and prospects.

His expression was open, even a little sad, and her hardened heart softened a little in response. She was holding her breath, afraid the smallest movement in the ether between them might inexorably alter the course of this moment. It was as if she was watching the perfectly weighted little white ball bounce and dance above the clicking wheel of the roulette table; it might land on her number if she – just - stayed - very - still.

He cast his eyes to the ceiling and back at her. Rubbing at his chin he dislodged two bloodied white tissues. They floated in wide arcs to the floor. He bent to pick them up and when he looked at her again his face was blank.

The sentence he uttered full of nothing but dismissal, "I hope you have a productive day."


	8. Chapter 8

At one end of the archive the wall was supported by two metal pillars. Edith sat up against one of them, reading a ledger from 1832 enthralled by the household economy of a local solicitor's family.

"Miss Crawley? It's coming up to six o'clock dear, are you ready to go?"

Reluctantly she put the ledger to the side of the room reserved for documents she'd read. There wasn't even so much of a suggestion of Pearson's diary amongst them.

She darted to the bottom of the stairs, ignoring the dull ache in her back which told her she should not have sat on the floor for so long, and shouted, "On my way up!"

She put on her thick tights and her two mismatched tank tops and cardigan, sweat beading under her hair and between her breasts. Bundling her notes into her bag she saved the open document on her laptop and headed upstairs.

Mrs Hughes chatted to her about the day as she finished her tidying. A gaggle of nursery children, all Gruffalo-obsessed, except for a small blonde girl still pining for Peppa. The local library regular, Mr Moseley, this time looking for an easy guide to mathematics, he'd talked her ear off about the Fibonacci sequence. There was an out of season walker, caked in mud and needing an OS Map.

Edith had come to enjoy this part of the day, listening to Mrs Hughes, reminding her that the whole time she was curled up amongst the boxes and the papers and the dust, life had continued to go on, right above her head.

Outside the wind gripped at her cardigan and made indecorous advances at her thighs. Edith held Mrs Hughes's bags as she locked up.

A deep, weary voice cut through the heavy weather, "Elsie."

Her companion sighed as she clicked the lock closed, "Mr Carson."

A tall man approached them. He had unruly black hair, streaked with grey. His face was full of character, strong features, gone slightly amorphous with age. He wore farm clothes and walked with a stick, probably more for poking through crops and jabbing at animals than to assist with ambulation.

Mrs Hughes crossed her arms, "Edith Crawley, this is my –" She paused, "husband, Charles Carson."

He shook her hand, "My wife refused to take my name."

"And you refused to take mine."

Edith knew now that she wasn't imagining the tension between them, she felt as though she'd interrupted them midway through a fight, silenced two people who wanted to be anything other than silent. Not to mention the fact that Mrs Hughes tended to talk her ear off over lunch and sometimes during quiet periods in the day and she'd never mentioned, never even hinted, that she was married.

"What can I do for you Mr Carson?"

"Elsie." He pleaded, half a glance in Edith's direction, before bringing his fingers briefly to his wife's elbow, " _Elsie_."

"I should go." She pecked Mrs Hughes on the cheek and smiled at Mr Carson, "very nice to meet you."

The hushed tones of their argument carried through the wind that whistled behind her as she started on the long walk back to Locksley. When she reached the corner of the road out of the village she turned back to see Mrs Hughes walking briskly away from Mr Carson. He stood, shoulders hunched, watching her go.

Even if life didn't get easier with age, it was supposed to be clearer. All those years of accumulated wisdom lighting a path through. Mr Carson looked as though his surroundings were as dark as they'd ever been.

Half way up the winding country road to Locksley House a green Land Rover skidded to a halt just ahead of her. It parked so close to the hedge she couldn't continue up the road as she intended. She walked around the drivers' side, preparing a dirty look to give to the inconsiderate ass who'd blocked her path, when the door was flung open and Sir Anthony stepped out.

Of course, it would be _this_ inconsiderate ass.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?!" He had to shout to make himself heard above the wind shaking the trees and buffeting their ears.

"Dancing the Macarena."

"What?!"

Edith huffed out her annoyance, "I'm walking back to Locksley, what does it look like I'm doing?!"

"You are utterly mad, this weather is foul."

"Oh, don't be overdramatic, it's a little breezy." If anything the weather was worse than when she'd left the library. The wind speed had picked up, the temperature had dipped, but she didn't need saving and certainly not by him.

"It's dangerous and you're not wearing - for God's sake." Before she could complete a word of protest he'd slipped out of his _Barbour_ and wrapped it about her shoulders. It smelt of cut grass and open farmland with a dash of antiseptic and something undefinable which she suspected was simply _him_. There was no reason it should be so alluring, erotic almost, but, to her, it was. It took all her willpower not to bury her nose in the collar and swoon as she enjoyed her fill.

The concentration expended on appearing disinterested in his coat distracted her as he divested her of her laptop case and book bag. She regained her voice, "really this is unnecessary - I'm almost at the house."

"You're nowhere near." He cupped his hand under her armpit and led her around the car to the passenger side.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?!" She sounded like some shrill housewife from a 1970s sitcom.

Releasing her, he opened the door - it clattered into the hedgerow - and gestured impatiently, "in!"

"I am not a sheepdog."

His eyes narrowed, "no, you are not. Sheepdogs are supremely intelligent animals who know better than to wander outside in an impending storm, and when offered transportation in a warm and safe vehicle, do not turn their noses up at it. You, Miss Crawley, are no sheepdog."

"You know you have such a way with people. A charming demeanour with such persuasive turns of phrase." She replied sarcastically.

He rubbed his hand on his forehead and pleaded, a small note of contrition in his tone, "please get in the car."

"Fine."

She had to push by him to get to the door, his body leant away. The few remaining leaves of the hedgerow protested as their dry skins were crushed against the skeleton of the foliage. Momentarily as she stepped past him they were nearly as close as they'd been on the night of the kiss, but there was to be no repeat. As if to ensure it, he turned his head, purported to clear his throat. She clambered into the car and slammed the door in annoyance. Not that she wanted to kiss the grumpy curmudgeon but it would be nice to think he wanted to kiss her again, or that the last kiss hadn't been some fevered imagining of her addled brain.

Then they were side by side in the vehicle, not even a gearstick to keep them apart.

The Yorkshire weather conspired with the Yorkshireman. _Typical_. Big, fat raindrops landed heavily on the windscreen and soon there was a veritable waterfall running down the clear glass in front of them.

She could tell, without even looking, that he was pleased, luxuriating in the thrill of being right. A glance in his direction confirmed it, his lips were curled into a small smile. He caught her looking, arched an eyebrow.

"Glad I picked you up now?"

"Barely."

He frowned. She peered out of the window, watched the hedgerows speed by, painted on the landscape in a blurred mix of green and browns.

"Why didn't you bring a car?"

"Excuse me?"

He arched his neck, looking over the bonnet as he guided them around a large fallen tree branch. His Adams Apple rose and fell and she tracked it with her eyes, "Why didn't you bring a car with you?" 

"I can't drive."

"How old are you?" He snapped the question.

She snapped straight back, "Twenty-seven. How old are you?!"

He snorted, "How is it that a twenty-seven-year-old woman doesn't know how to drive?!"

"Must I justify everything about my existence to you?"

"No."

He spoke the word as though he meant exactly the opposite.

"I grew up in central London. I never needed to drive. I took the tube or the bus or I walked. Then I went to Cambridge, also not a city conducive to driving. Then I came back to London. I've never needed to be able to drive - until now." She curled her fingers into fists and forced her annoyance into the palms of her hands, trying desperately to keep her voice at an even tone, and, ultimately, failing, "And at this precise moment the ability would be an absolute delight, because I wouldn't be in this bloody car with you, but in a vehicle all on my own, singing along to some cheesy music, rather than fielding yet another accusatory query about myself from a man determined to find fault."

The speech left her gasping, both because the words had poured out at an almighty rate, but also because she'd said precisely what she thought, completely unshrouded in her usual polite, apologetic tones.

The warmth in her cheeks was a small price to pay. This was a moment of complete triumph. Silence from his side of the vehicle. She'd won. She'd had the absolute last word on the topic.

And then he cleared his throat and she thought – _oh no, no, please don't_.

"Driving is a vital life skill and, at your age, it's one you should have acquired."

"Oh for heaven's sake!" She slapped her hand down on the expanse of seat between them, "you are the single most obdurate, infuriating, condescending man I have ever met."

"I'm sorry."

The previous December, Mary had spent the entirety of Christmas Day boring everyone with stories about how she'd been made head of her department at the exceedingly dull management consultancy firm where she worked, doing a job no one understood. It had been on the tip of Edith's tongue to say something to get her to shut the hell up, but she hadn't. In the entirety of the six months she was trying to conceive, Sybil talked about nothing but getting pregnant – ovulation cycles and fertility charts and folic acid supplements. Edith never once asked her to change the bloody subject. She'd lost count of the number of tuitions and supervisions she'd sat through listening to diatribe after diatribe on feminism, history and the world in general with which she vehemently disagreed, but she stayed silent. When her Mother proclaimed she should wear more make-up, or dye her hair, or go out with the Davison's son who "is a dentist, you know", she listened, she acceded, she went on one awful blind date after the next. The polite nod of agreement had become the dominant text of her body language.

Not so with Sir Anthony. She'd been telling him exactly what she thought from the very start. It proved to be no different this time.

"No you're not. Men like you don't know how to be sorry. You're sorry I don't agree with you, and you're sorry I express it, but you're not sorry to be the way you are, you don't have the emotional intellect to be sorry about that, or to make some decent at attempt at self-improvement."

"Men like me? You really have written me off, haven't you?"

"Yes. But you've written me off as well, so we're even."

"Actually, I –"

The car jolted into a pothole or possibly over some fallen debris, either way she was thrown about in her seat.

The determined ache at the bottom of her back became a sharp pain daggering up to her shoulder blades, "Fuck!"

She squeezed her eyes shut, sucked in a breath between her teeth.

The car stopped and he was at her side in a flash, hand on her knee, firing questions, "Are you ok? What is it? Where does it hurt? What do you need?"

She mumbled some non-descript indicator of her soreness and risked a stretch, hissing through the pain.

"Edith?"

The first time he'd ever said her first name. It was a wonderful thing when proclaimed by that voice, a breathless vowel carrying forth determined syllables. Gentle, but firm, and positively loaded with concern. She glanced up at him. The blue eyes were wide and she was stunned into a silent reverence. Speaking was quite impossible whilst holding his gaze like that, her brain too full of contemplating the marvel of his face, his voice, _of him_.

She turned away, angry that she still found him attractive, "don't fuss. It's nothing."

"It's not nothing. Was it my driving?"

She stole a glance in his direction, his head dipped so she couldn't avoid another look straight at him, his eyebrows furrowed together crowning his nose with an upside down triangle.

 _Who was she kidding?_ She found him much, much more than attractive, he was intriguing and intelligent, as well as all those insults from before - obdurate, infuriating, condescending.

She shut her eyes in the pretense it was her back that was hurting, "It's not your driving. There's no desk."

"I don't understand?"

"In the archive. There's no place to work. No desk or chair. I've been sitting on the floor reading and then getting up and lugging boxes and papers upstairs to read in greater detail. There was a twinge this morning and an ache by this afternoon."

"You should've got Mrs Hughes to get you a desk."

She folded over, bending one way and then the other, "I can hardly demand the sixty-something librarian bring a desk downstairs for me."

"You should!"

"Please -" The pain started to recede, "Let's not row anymore."

"But Miss Crawley, you need a proper work station, you'll do yourself in if you keep this up. Someone your age shouldn't be experiencing –"

Back to the formality. Back to the berating. She groaned loudly, an exaggeration, but it seemed to shut him up.

The car arrived at Locksley, churning up the gravel on the drive.

"Stay." His voice brooked no disagreement. He was quickly out of the car and walking around to her side, either not hearing, or, more likely, ignoring her repeated assertion that she was _not a bloody sheepdog_!

She scowled as he opened her door and held out his hand. The cuff around his wrist was undone and splayed out from under the sleeve of his grey jumper like an errant piece of blue check fabric.

Puzzled, she guessed at his intentions, "you're not carrying me."

He chuckled, "You know I can't do that." He waved his hand at the foot well, "I'll be taking your bags though."

A little affronted that he found the notion of carrying her such a silly one and rather disappointed that he wouldn't touch her, she handed him her laptop case and book bag. Then she swung her legs around and lowered herself from the seat.

"Careful now." The caution in his tone was veiled with a note of care.

Gingerly she stepped down onto the driveway, allowing her feet and legs to take the full measure of her apparently uncarriable weight, flinching as fresh jolts of pain made themselves known in the flesh of her lower back.

Anthony shortened his natural stride to walk at her pace back to the house. They reached the hallway and she told him he could just leave her things there and she'd collect them later.

"Do you want them in your room?"

"Please." She hoped she'd be able to find some semblance of comfort amongst the pillows on her bed and do a little work before drifting off. Hopefully the pain would work its way out of her system.

His eyes flicked to the staircase, "Then I shall follow you up."

The little thrill that shot through her at the idea of having him in her bedroom was completely ridiculous.

They arrived in the bedroom and he was barely there long enough for Edith to even realise it, like a shaft of light quickly blotted by a thick cloud. So much for the thrill of having him in her room, there was barely any time to appreciate the fact of it at all.

Carefully, she sat on the edge of the bed. It wasn't right to say she laid back, it was more like a slow inch by inch increment, before managing to pull her knees up into her stomach. She closed her eyes and moaned into the soft duvet, willing sleep to come.

She thought hours had passed when a knock sounded at the door. She crooked open half an eye and caught sight of her watch. It had only been fifteen minutes.

"Yes." She groaned the word.

Sir Anthony entered the room carrying a tray, one handed, precariously, with a something else tucked under the same arm. He knocked the door shut with his foot and the whole lot nearly tumbled to the floor.

"What are you doing?"

"I bought tea." He set the tray on the desk, "and a hot water bottle." He sounded uncertain, the 'and' caught in his mouth, stumbling over his tongue.

With a ceramic clink, he opened the lid of the teapot and peered inside. He mumbled something and turned to face her, "You can't stay like that, you'll never be able to move in the morning. You need to stretch out."

She scowled at him, but she didn't move her head, so it was directed into the quilt, he probably hadn't taken the full force of it even though she'd contorted her face as fiercely as she was able to, "I don't want to move."

"I'm sure you don't Miss Crawley, but you should. Take it from someone older, who has suffered many similar difficulties in the past." He looked knowingly at her.

"I don't think I can move."

"I'll help. Lean your weight into mine."

The hand was presented again, just as before on the driveway. It was as enticing now as it was then, shorn cuff and all. She eyed the long fingers and short nails, remembering what they had felt like dipped into the curve above her bottom. She shook her head, although the movement was probably barely perceptible, "I think I can do it."

She cursed under her breath but managed to lever her body into a sitting position, the pillows providing a surprising amount of support.

Satisfied she was managing without his help he went back to the teapot, "you like it strong, don't you?"

"Yes. Yes I do."

They could only have drunk tea together a couple of times. Once at the now infamous breakfast meeting and he'd made her a cup, reluctantly the previous weekend. Anna had corralled him into it with a look that said – _if you don't do this, you will know the wrath in my very soul_ \- as though she was some warrior woman out of _Game of Thrones_.

The perfect cup appeared beside her, steaming hot and only a couple of shades darker than if there had been no milk at all, she saw the last of the white cloud dissipating into the thick brown surrounds.

He picked up the hot water bottle from behind him, "if you sit up, we can put this under your lower back, the heat will help."

"May I have a moment to sip my tea?"

His eyes darted around the room, as if he was seeking aid in answering that question from the wardrobe, or the sideboard, or the little girls in the picture above the hearth with the pointer dogs. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish and then sat in the armchair beside the bed.

She blew a stream of air across the surface of the tea, shaping the steam with her mouth. She didn't want to be suspicious of him, but she was. She feared the next attack and perhaps here, as with Mary when she was in a spiteful mood, offense was better than defense, "why are you being nice to me?"

He bobbed his head, tensed his jaw, "You wanted hostility between us, but I never agreed to that. I said I wanted civility and so I shall be civil."

"Making me tea and bringing me a hot water bottle is a little more than civility, isn't it?"

"Not when there's no one else to do it. You've hurt yourself."

"Well, you've done much more than is necessary, you can go."

"I will wait until you're settled. You'll need my help with the hot water bottle."

"Will I?" She said drily.

"Yes."

She laughed, "I think I can manage myself."

"Have you ever heard the saying, ' _don't look a gift horse in the mouth_ '?"

"Why no." She deadpanned, in a sickly sweet voice, "won't you please explain it to me in the most patronizing terms possible?"

"Alright, alright!" He raised his hand in surrender, "At ease Miss Crawley, I shall sit here in silence."

"But you won't go and leave me to it."

"Not until you're settled. Drink your tea."

She sat back and took a sip of the tea. It was the nicest cup she'd ever had, she caught herself just before she smacked her lips.

"You must have other things to do."

He smiled at that, examining a worn patch in his trousers, just at the bend of his knee. He turned and looked at her warmly, "I have twenty-five other things to do." He slouched down in the chair and shut his eyes.

The morning after the breakfast he told Anna, in the strongest possible terms, that he didn't want anything to do with her. As though she was some tumour eating into the very foundations of his life. And, yet, here he was - gentle giant, helpmeet - refusing to leave when he had to know there was no real reason to stay.

Briefly it crossed her mind that he might want to make peace between them, perhaps forge something other than hostility, something more, even, than civility.

But that was surely her own hopes talking, rather than a valid assessment of his. She was reminded of the pictures in the study and his background. The school photographs from the public school he attended – a Rugby boy. Chances were all the Strallan men were Rugby boys. Public schools trained the masters of the universe. The men (because they were all men, of course) who guided every facet of society in precisely the direction that suited them. They were all just as well trained in manners. It was much harder to appreciate that a man was about to plunge a knife into your back if he made a nice show of shaking your hand.

Chances were, that was all this was: manners. A public school boy couldn't ignore a damsel in distress, it wasn't in their DNA. The same ingrained impulses had likely driven him on the night they met.

She set down the cup on the bedside table, he opened his eyes at the sound.

"I'll lean forwards and you can put the bottle just at my lower back." He obliged.

He lingered a moment, bought the teapot over and the little milk jug.

Then he just stood in the middle of her room, looked about again, half bowed, like some butler from an Agatha Christie novel, whispered, "feel better." and he was gone.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N I am so sorry for the delay in posting. My week has been crazy. Thank you for the reviews, they're keeping me going, which is much needed when I'm writing and editing in the wee small hours._

Routine was the lynchpin of Anthony Strallan's life. The doctors drummed it into him: the unknown is the enemy of good health. Instability is a silent threat to wellness. Certainty is crippled by the uncertain. They delivered a thousand mantras alongside the drugs and the therapy and the eager smiles and upbeat conversation.

At first, as with every aspect of his care, he'd railed against it - screamed and shouted about leftie mumbo-jumbo and pseudo-science. He wanted to be left alone to wallow in the dark, to be clad in black, mourning the life he'd lost in the blink of an eye.

Eventually, with Maud's coaxing and Anna's encouragement, he'd come around. Long after he'd weaned himself off the drugs, completed his treatment, and stopped seeing the shrinks, the advice to stick to a routine had, well, stuck.

Tuesdays were for the books. A detailed consideration of spreadsheets and ledgers and ongoing cash flow issues, forecasts of profit and loss. It was for figures; addition and subtraction and long division. All the skills Anthony had long possessed and the ones he was most comfortable exercising.

So when he cross-checked his sums on three lines of feed purchases and found they were incorrect, he knew all was not well.

He threw down his pen in disgust and sat back in his chair, it creaked under his weight. Shutting his eyes bought to mind the object of his distraction. He saw Edith Crawley's face crumpling with pain as she stepped from his car. Eyes shadowed. Pale skin grey, rather than milky white. Lips thin.

Pushing the image away, he hunched back over his work. His eyes caught on a corner of wood at the other side of the room. A desk so laden with papers and books you could barely make out its presence.

Turning back to his notes he failed again to do a simple long division calculation, distracted again by the unused furniture in his estate office.

The desk seemed to be getting larger, taking up the entire wall and then most of the floor, casting off its papers and its books. Soon it was his entire office demanding he paid attention, lest he find himself crushed by its ever-increasing dimensions.

Anthony blinked, and found that it was still normal sized and precisely where it had started out. It had not, in fact, defied all the conventions of time and space.

For a moment Edith Crawley was sitting on it, smiling at him, a twinkle in her eye.

"This is ridiculous." He muttered under his breath.

"What is?" Charles Carson, his estate manager, stepped into the office at precisely that moment, drying his hands on a damp rag and scrapping his boots on the little mat by the door.

"I – It's –" Frantically Anthony looked down at the books, "cleaning supplies. We're paying an inordinate amount for our bulk tank iodine. There's been a -." He did a little mental maths, successfully for the first time that morning, "2.3% increase."

"Ridiculous indeed, Sir Anthony."

"Charlie do you use that desk?"

It took Charlie's eyes a moment to locate the desk beneath all the paraphernalia, "no. Your Father used to keep it in the barn in the east field, but had it bought down here in the Winter months –" He trailed off.

The familiar pang shot through Anthony. It hadn't always been a dull ache like that. At first, mention of his Father was like taking a bullet, it could lay him low for weeks at a time.

"He didn't get the chance to take it back up there."

"No, Sir Anthony."

"Do _you_ need it up in the east barn?"

"Haven't missed it yet."

The figures could be finished when he got back. There was no earthly way he could continue with his work until this matter was settled.

"Can you get one of the lads to load it into the car for me?"

"Certainly. Where are you taking it?"

"Down to the library."

Charlie was in the middle of making a tea. The water sloshed over the edge of the mug and he didn't seem to notice, "You'll be seeing Elsie then?"

"I expect so."

"Right. Can you – can you tell her –" He squeezed the bridge of his nose. In a forty year acquaintance Anthony wasn't sure he'd ever seen him look so out of sorts, "Nothing. Doesn't matter. I'll see where the boys are and get this desk shifted."

Before he knew it Anthony was standing at the door to the archive with a growing sense of unease. Mrs Hughes had been taken aback to find him in the library after years of never setting foot in the place, she was even more surprised at the nature of his errand. Thomas just told him straight out that he was an idiot.

A couple of teenage girls gathered around a computer giggled at him as he struggled to force the door open. It gave way and he fell into the space behind it, managing to catch himself just before he plummeted headfirst down the stairs.

With a deep breath, he straightened up and set off into the library's underbelly. Acting calm, rather than actually being calm.

Anthony was completely taken aback by what he found. The word 'archive' conjured up an image of an organised space, he expected neat shelves and files with some sort of catalogue – the library of congress or, at the very least, the Dewey decimal. He found none of that. Instead, there was complete disorder.

If he'd been alone he would've said something. A moniker to indicate his shock that the residing place for all of Locksley's history could be in such a state.

But he wasn't alone. Edith was there, in the very centre of it all. That fact in isolation probably wouldn't have silenced him either, except that she was on the floor, facing away from him.

On all fours.

The room didn't suddenly appear less messy, or more ordered. It was simply that the room ceased to appear at all. The whole space was just her, in that position. She was ferreting around in a cupboard underneath some shelves.

His prevailing thought on seeing her wasn't to suggest she might be doing further damage to her back, or to ask her what she was looking for, or even to do something, anything, to make it known he had entered the room. All of those things would've been the logical utterances of sensible man. None of them occurred to him.

Instead, he was struck dumb with just one, crass idea: _I could take her like this_.

The scene was playing in his mind before he could stop it. It didn't help that her skirt, whilst not short, finished over half way up her thighs because of how she was positioned. The skin it revealed was startlingly pale set against the dark denim. It would be nothing at all to undo his trousers, kneel behind her, lift it up and put himself precisely where he wanted to be.

Reality, as it's wont to do, asserted itself aggressively. That was also precisely where he could never be.

He cleared his throat and announced himself.

Edith squealed; a peculiarly feminine sound which did nothing to dampen his arousal. She turned, plainly trying to pull up onto two feet, but her centre of gravity was too low and she fell back onto her bottom, facing him. Her hand came up to cover her heart and she took several deep breaths.

"Good grief, you scared me! You shouldn't prowl around in dark basement archives without giving some indication that you're there."

"Sorry." He didn't sound very sorry though, and he wasn't. For just a moment he'd been inside her and she was warm and willing.

She clambered to her feet, taking a couple of extra steps backwards, unsteady, as though she was Bambi learning to walk.

He realised as she was making the movement that he should offer to assist. He could do that much, but he didn't want to touch her. If she was to touch him, then it was somehow acceptable, because it was out of his control. He couldn't be the one to start it. He had no idea where it might lead. No trust that it would stop, or that he would want it to.

From somewhere he was reminded of a long ago visit to an American museum and being mesmerised by _Undine Rising From the Waters_. The sign in front of the statue dictated that visitors, 'Do Not Touch'. He'd wanted to though, desperately. The creamy marble pulled at him. The curves and grooves, somehow shaped into life from cold, hard stone. The opaque dress she wore looked like silk, surely he could feather the hem and it would float from her body, pool on the floor around his feet. Instead he just looked. Looked at this priceless, beautiful object, locked up in a museum, behind doors, and walls, and demanding signs in black, bold script and decided not to risk it. Not because he might be caught, escorted out, perhaps asked never to return. Rather, it was because a brush across the toes might become a hand up the calf, or his grip around her waist and then an index finger up the long lines of the fabric, ankle to wrist. If he took a small piece of this wonder, he'd want the whole of it. He'd be annoyed and angry, jealous, even, to be denied. Better to deny himself any of it at all.

His whole life was a museum now.

She asked, "What can I do for you Sir Anthony? Don't tell me you need something from the archive?" Chuckling, he suspected more out of discomfort than humour, she joked, "I think Mrs Hughes would be bowled over if the place had two visitors in two weeks, when it's had none for the previous twenty years."

He was bashful now, blushing a little, although the room was very hot which might go some way to explaining that.

It annoyed him that he was embarrassed. Why should he be? It was perfectly sensible to come down here. He had a desk and she needed one. He couldn't very well look at a useable but unused piece of furniture which could be given some utility and do nothing about it.

There was no escaping it though; the idea felt silly – he felt silly - now he was actually here, in front of her, executing it. A significant part of him wanted to bolt up the stairs, tell Thomas to put everything back in the van and drive away, forget the entire day, start afresh in the morning.

"No. No. I don't need the archive, no. It's – I – "

As he grappled with the words he found Thomas's brash interruption negated the need to explain, "You don't want me to bring it down these bloody stairs do you?" He shouted, a bodiless voice from above.

Anthony felt the wince crease across his face. Edith looked puzzled, as well she might.

He went to the bottom of the staircase and shouted up, "Yes. Please. The chair too." His voice sounded sharp. Embarrassment did that to him, he'd discovered – made him defensive, sometimes aggressive.

Thomas huffed and puffed, heaving the desk down to where they were standing, undoubtedly wanting to underline how much in his debt Anthony now found himself. The exercise was accomplished pretty quickly and the chair was soon in situ as well. He held out his palm, hand on hip.

"I'll come to the _Wilberforce_ and pay you there."

"Twenty quid now, or I'll put the desk back in the car."

"God's sake." Anthony muttered under his breath, pulling out his wallet, "You have not a charitable bone in your body."

"Nope." Thomas smirked his approval at the transaction, raised a mock salute to Miss Crawley and left.

Her eyes travelled from the desk, to Thomas's disappearing figure and back again. Finally, she settled her gaze on him and crossed her arms.

This was a terrible idea.

Sweat gathered under his hairline. His coat felt like the thirtieth layer of clothing he'd donned this morning, as opposed to just the third. Perhaps he might evaporate. He wanted to, disappearing into the atmosphere suddenly held vast appeal.

"What is that?" She asked, suspiciously.

"It's a desk, what does it look like?!" He barked the answer at her and immediately wished he hadn't. It wasn't as though his mortification could be alleviated by making her feel stupid.

"Yes. How silly of me, of course, it's a desk. What I meant – as, I hoped, would be obvious – is, why is it here?"

"You needed it."

"I didn't ask you for a desk."

"I know you didn't." His voice was raised now.

It had all been so easy when they first met. When she was a nameless woman he'd never seen again.

"You bought this here for me?"

"Well – " He lied, "no. The archive needs one doesn't it? You can't very well have an archive – a place of study and research without a desk."

"Mrs Hughes didn't mention to me that you were the manager here." She said, sarcastically.

He rubbed his fingers along his dewy forehead and shucked his coat, "I'm not the manager, but I'm the local – I have – my name – I'm –" He was in a cul-de-sac. He should've been honest. The desk was for her. He'd thought only of her in bringing it here. He cleared his throat, "I'm the local landowner. I take responsibility for certain aspects of village life."

"So this is lord of the manor paternalism?"

"I don't know what you want me to say." He shrugged, exasperated and pushed his hand through his hair.

There was a particular expression her face shaped into when she was about to attack. An infinitesimal squint of the eyes, a slight flaring of the nostrils. And her chin raised up, lengthening the line of her neck.

"Please, don't do that. Don't act as if I'm being the unreasonable little woman, as if my thinking is some big conundrum you can't possibly solve because it's so entirely outside of the range of reasonable responses. Mrs Hughes told me last week that she can count the number of times you've been into the library on one hand. You didn't bring this desk because of some paternalistic bent. Tell me the truth."

"Fine then! I bought it here for you. I couldn't care one jot if the archive has a desk or not but you're twenty-seven years old and you shouldn't be suffering with back ailments."

For a moment he thought his honesty had come too late. The anger was still there. But then her chin dropped slightly and a small smile curved up one side of her lips, "Thank you." Kites of red appeared on her cheeks, she ran her fingers across the surface of the wood, "I apologise for getting angry. This is a very nice gesture."

She gathered up her laptop and notebook, flowery pencil case and post-its and positioned them all. She tested the chair, lowered it a little. She let her head loll back onto the headrest, shut her eyes.

"Oh, yes. This will do quite nicely."

She was quite the picture. He had the overwhelming urge to bend down and kiss her again, so he was critical instead, "I didn't bring it so you could nap the hours away."

One eye opened, "Slave driver." She murmured.

That was that then. His task was complete. There was plenty of work left to do a Locksley, he glanced at his watch. If he left now he might complete the books by close of play and he wouldn't have to watch today's work bleed into tomorrow's, with all the consequential effects. The routine need not be completely disrupted, _if_ he left straight away. And what reason was there to stay?

"Did you find the source you were looking for?" He asked.

"Not yet. I've found some fascinating documents."

"How long do you plan on searching?"

She shrugged, "Until I find it, or until I've examined every piece of paper in this place."

He looked around, "That could take months!" He didn't know whether to be alarmed or delighted at the prospect that she might be in Locksley over a prolonged period.

"Then it'll take months." She picked up a bundle of papers and carried them from one side of them room to the other. He wished he could help.

"It's important to you? Your research?"

"Very." She nodded, "For better or for worse it's what my life has focused on. I believe historical scholarship is important –"

"As I you've expressed to me before."

She looked a little shy at that, but there was a little pride in her face too, perhaps because of her kitchen victory, "Yes. Don't worry, I won't bore you with another speech."

"You didn't bore me before."

 _You astounded me_ , he thought.

Her eyes flicked to him and then back to the pile of papers she was stacking. She nodded her thanks and continued, "I'm particularly interested in the study of women, who have been neglected by historical discourse. Women are considered only as wives and mothers - usually the wives and mothers of great men and nothing more. As if all they've ever done is get married and have children. Somewhere in this mess is the diary of a woman who did much, much more than that and I intend to find it."

"Is there something wrong with getting married and having children?"

She rolled her eyes and looked away from him, turning back to her documents, "Why am I not at all surprised that you've fixated on that aspect of what I said? I suppose that's how you think of women - as animals to be bred."

He would've been insulted, jumped to defend himself, but he didn't need to, because she turned around, her hand over her mouth, eyes wide and apologised.

"Gosh. Sir Anthony. I – I'm sorry, very, very sorry. That was – well – rude and uncalled for. I should never have said it."

She was a little distraught, doe-like eyes big and round, divots scored across her brow. He couldn't be angry at that delicate face, so full of remorse, "That's alright. I daresay I've done a fair amount to deserve some vitriol from you."

"Perhaps, but lots of people have deserved my vitriol, you're the only person I've ever spoken to like that."

"Like what?"

"With complete honesty."

"Honesty is a bad thing?"

"It can be, when it's brutal."

That was an apt word for how it'd been between them.

He nodded, "I'm afflicted with stupidity, with no emotional intellect."

"And I'm a useless academic doing work that doesn't matter." She arched an eyebrow, "Lacking the brains possessed by a sheepdog."

"It has been brutal."

She nodded, "For my part, they were honest observations, but that doesn't mean they're true, or make them worthy of articulation. I'm not normally like this. I never say things like that. I've never spoken to anyone they way I speak to you."

"Really?"

"No. My Father always says my older sister, Mary, is the intelligent one, and my younger sister, Sybil, is the tenacious one, and I'm –" She sighed, scrunched up her nose, "sweet." A rueful laugh escaped from her lips, even though she obviously didn't find it funny, "I hate it, really. There's something so insipid - dull, even - about being the one who's just sweet."

"Would it help if I said that I don't think you're at all sweet?"

A smile came fully across her face then, big and bold, crinkling around her eyes and they sparkled – such a silly observation, it can't have been true, the basement was so dim - but they were suddenly full of light. And, best of all, she laughed. Full throated, her shoulders shaking, her neck thrown back, "Thank you, Sir Anthony, that does actually make me feel better!"

It was a wonderful thing to see this woman laugh and a miracle that he'd been the one to do it. The sound coiled out through the air and curled around his heart.

He was in trouble.


	10. Chapter 10

The perils of a provincial library became apparent to Edith in her third week of residency at the Locksley archive. In these small villages (Mrs Hughes explained, as she told Edith that the library would be shut from 10am to 2pm) every institution linked to the next. The church, the village hall, the primary school and the library all operated as a unit. If there was an event, they all contributed.

Apparently Harvest Festival was an event.

"You should come along."

"Oh – I –" She shook her head, "I'd feel like an interloper."

"Nonsense! We're a welcoming community. Besides you can't very well sit out in the cold for four hours. We'll go over to the town hall first to set out the tea and cakes and the food baskets. Then we troop over to the church for the service – don't worry, it's more low than high church."

Edith nodded, as if she had been concerned about that fact. Her religious education was inconsistent, to say the least.

"Then we troop back to the town hall and eat our weight in cakes and little sandwiches and natter about nothing and everything and we'll all be back to work by two o'clock. You'd be doing me a favour. I have cakes to carry over and I'll need someone to help me dodge my husband, you're the only one, aside from the two of us, who knows there's trouble in paradise."

Mrs Hughes punctuated the last sentence with an almost falsetto tone of humour and Edith knew it for the fiction it was as soon as she uttered it. This was not something Mrs Hughes was taking lightly.

"Alright. It sounds like fun."

"That's the spirit!" With a wink and the rustle of heavy grey skirts Mrs Hughes disappeared up the stairs, leaving Edith to fit in an hour of work.

At ten the two of them walked to Mrs Hughes's car and retrieved four trays of brightly coloured cupcakes from the boot.

"You baked these?" Edith asked, "They're beautiful."

"Heavens no! Can't bake to save my life. Drove to Skipton yesterday and bought them." She whispered, "Don't tell anyone."

"Something to hold over you!"

Mrs Hughes chuckled and sighed, "Charles will know, of course. He knows now that I can't cook. I'm an apathetic cleaner too. And I snore. Marriage does that - lays bare all your bad traits."

"How long have you been married?"

"Eight months."

There wasn't the opportunity to follow up Mrs Hughes's answer with an exclamation of consternation because they joined a larger crowd carrying parcels of food and platters of sandwiches and cakes. Edith assumed that people of the age of Mr Carson and Mrs Hughes had been married a significant period of time, but it seemed theirs was an unusual story.

If someone had asked her to draw a picture of a small Yorkshire town hall she'd have cobbled together (drawing was not one Edith's strengths) something which looked like the one in Locksley.

A single storey stone building. Hardy, and bearded with crawling ivy. Six large windows, slightly foggy around the edges where the heat inside battled with the cold outside. Within was even more quintessential. Timber struts brightened with bunting. Parquet flooring designed to withstand an eons worth of assemblies and tea dances and bums and tums. Trelise tables and checked tablecloths.

She followed Mrs Hughes across the room and set out the cakes. Mrs Hughes blushed at the compliments and glanced a guilty look in her direction.

Preparations were well under way for the post-church gluttony. Lined up like soldiers before battle were rows of the once-ubiquitous avocado coloured tea and saucer sets, for which some hipster café in Dalston probably would've paid a fortune. A sullen looking girl was pairing each with a teaspoon, unconcerned about the ugly clatter of stainless steel on ceramic.

"Daisy, this is Edith Crawley. She's visiting the Village. She's been doing some work at the library."

Daisy did not look up from her task, although Mrs Hughes appeared unconcerned with her lack of response and begun arranging the cakes into some semblance of organisation.

Fisting her hands into her pockets and rocking back and forth on her heels, Edith jumped in, "Can I help at all?"

Without looking up Daisy answered, "You could fill those –" She put out her left arm, dead straight and pointing, "up."

At the end of Daisy's index finger were eight large thermos kettles.

"Hot water's through there." Another jab. Edith wondered if everyone knew to stay an arm's length away from her at all times.

'Through there' was a small lean-to, tacked onto the side of the hall with a hot water dispenser a couple of battered old microwaves, a fridge and a large metal sink.

In front of the sink, elbow deep in a cloud of thick white bubbles, was Anthony Strallan.

Since he brought her the desk the previous week she hadn't seen him. If not for the pools of water in the bottom of their shared bathtub and the movement of his shampoo bottle, she would've assumed he'd left Locksley altogether.

The water sloshed when he looked up at her, something clattered against the metal of the sink. His eyes widened, like a deer caught in headlights.

He was sporting a tidy beard of blonde hair. It would, she suspected, be pleasantly abrasive against her skin. Half of her, most of her, _all_ of her - she finally admitted to herself – wanted to walk straight up to him and find out.

Then he spoke, asking, as though she was committing some crime, "What are you doing here?"

All the air went out of her, like a balloon deflating in the sad days after a wild party.

She rolled her eyes, "A little petty theft from the Harvest collection, perhaps some Satanic worshipping later on – I'll play it by ear."

"Do you ever just answer a question?"

"Do you ever ask yourself if a question needs to be asked?! I was invited by Mrs Hughes for goodness sake! And I'm helping fill these." She looked down at the four thermoses she'd been able to carry, "Pitching in, as they say."

"Right. Yes. Sorry. I'm washing some glasses."

"I see that, Sir Anthony."

They were awkward teenagers again. Each shuffling, Edith took her cheek between her teeth and fidgeted, he ran his tongue along his teeth whilst his eyes darted from floor to ceiling to sink.

The atmosphere between them could have any number of causes. The kiss, or the rows, or the desk, or the honesty they shared the last time they met.

He didn't find her at all sweet, which was somehow one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her.

The hot water heater was at the far end of the room, she turned and squeezed past him. He went entirely still; she was pretty certain he'd even stopped breathing.

It must be the kiss. The tension radiating through his whole body suggested he was terrified she might pounce on him again.

They should just have it out. She should demand an explanation, or give one.

She opened the first kettle and started to fill it. She imagined smiling up over at him with a lack of concern. In her mind's eye her face became startlingly like Mary's.

 _Look, Sir Anthony, we made out, thousands have done it before us, thousands will do it after. It was nice, but it was a mistake. I don't even like you. There's nothing between us now so let's just forget all about it._

In her imagination the words drawled from between her red-stained lips, like some 40s movie star.

So many lies.

 _Nice_. Prosaic rot. It was splendid.

 _A mistake_. The handling of it was a mistake, but the act itself?

 _I don't even like you_. Grumpy curmudgeon. One who nursed her bad back and bought her a desk. And looked like a Greek God.

 _There's nothing between us now_. Except all this magnificent, stimulating friction.

 _Let's just forget all about it_. Let's not.

The delivery was a lie too. Edith was many things, but she was not a movie star from Hollywood's Golden Age. And she did not own a red lipstick. Sybil made her try it once. It ended up dotted across her teeth and smudged across her mouth almost the instant she'd taken a sip of her gin and tonic.

The silence was deafening. Then Edith realised what a normal person would do when faced with a situation like this one: _gossip_.

"So, what's the story with Mrs Hughes and Mr Carson?"

"They're married."

"Yes. That much I've ascertained, but only for eight months? At their age –"

"There's no age limit on love."

She sighed, "I know that Sir Anthony. I'm just wondering."

"Charlie has been in love with her for twenty years. I remember coming home the Christmas after she arrived in the village and my Father –" He paused to clear his throat, "My Father was ribbing him about his constant visits down to the library."

"She didn't feel the same way?"

"It took her a long time to accept that Charlie is a devout nudist." He explained solemnly.

"I beg your pardon?!"

Anthony arched an eyebrow, "What?! You have a monopoly on sarcasm?"

"Funny!" She scuffed his arm with her fist.

Anthony turned and wiped his hand and arm on his apron. It did an inconsistent job of drying him off, a patch of bubbles remained on the underside of his wrist.

"He didn't tell her until last year. I think she realised then that she loved him too. They married. It was the event of the year, basically a royal wedding."

He scratched his face and left the bubbles behind, clinging to his cheek beside his ear.

Edith acted without thinking. Reaching up, she brushed them away. His beard _was_ pleasantly abrasive and his skin was warm.

He sucked in a breath, mouth ajar.

"Sorry." She flicked the bubbles from her fingertips and they floated to the floor, popping and dissolving into a dark patch on the tiles.

"Don't be sorry."

There was an alternative to talking about the kiss.

They could simply repeat it.

The blue eyes pulled her, like dual beams from some other-worldly UFO. She floated through time and space towards him.

"The church service starts in fifteen minutes, time to go."

In the blink of an eye Edith's back was against the wall. Anthony's was against the sink. The clean glasses rattled a guilty chorus. They'd located as much space as they could make in the small room and put it between them in a flash.

Anna's eyes travelled slowly from Edith to Anthony, "Everything ok?"

"Yep."

"Fine."

They both started to walk towards the door at the same time, bumping into one another. Anthony held out his hand and Edith went first.

Anna shook her head.

A snaking line of children was leading the way to the church, standing two by two, hand in hand. Boys in short trousers with untucked shirts and girls in bottle green dresses, with unfurling hems and button-less cardigans.

She and Anthony walked behind them. A little boy near the back pulled on some unsuspecting girl's pigtail. She turned and gave him a glare of ferocious indignation, pushing wrinkles into her young nose and across her forehead, presumably she'd borrowed the expression from her Mother.

Anthony dipped his head and whispered in Edith's ear, "I suspect he's nursing his first crush."

In the church Anthony led her to a pew and ushered her to the end. Anna and John joined them. There was much shuffling to manage it, but, eventually, Daisy and Mrs Hughes also managed to fit on the same row.

The consequence of making space where there wasn't much to begin with, was that Anthony's leg and arm pressed up against her.

She doubted that, no matter how 'low' the Church, she was allowed any erotic thoughts. Distracting herself, she read the book of service and then the hymns – _We Plough the Fields and Scatter_ was one of her favourites from school. As was _Autumn Days_. Then she got desperate and actually picked up a Bible, thumbing the pages absentmindedly, trying desperately to stop picturing the bare skin of Anthony's thighs.

About halfway through the service her teeth begun to chatter. She hadn't dressed for a drafty old building; she'd dressed for the (almost literal) furnace of the archive.

Standing for the next hymn she folded her arms and pushed her hands beneath them.

A poke in her side caused her to look up. Anthony wasn't singing, he was frowning down at her instead. Of course, they couldn't have a conversation in the middle of the song, so, instead, they conducted a miniature homage to Charlie Chaplin.

Anthony asked with a raised eyebrow, whilst pulling emphatically at the collar of his coat, "Do you want this?"

She shook her head vigorously, meaning, "No. I'm fine."

He opened his mouth and drew his head back, pursing his lips. A gesture of scepticism.

Smiling, she unfolded her arms, holding out her hands to try and indicate all was well.

It couldn't be stopped though. Just like when he picked her up on the side of the road, he was determined to see her warmly clothed, perhaps it was his northern upbringing showing. He handed her their shared hymn book and shucked out of his coat, jabbing Anna with his elbow in the process. With a flourish he flung it around Edith's shoulders like some nineteenth century cloak.

She rolled her eyes but there was no venom in the gesture. Gratefully she pushed her arms into the proper place. Giving her body a moment to absorb the warmth left by his, she mouthed, "Thank you."

After the service Mrs Hughes's prediction, or perhaps her promise, came entirely true. They ate their weight and drunk copious quantities of tea.

Locksley's small community piled into the hall and nattered the hours away. Edith met teachers and doctors, housewives and househusbands. Even Thomas turned up. _Rebel without a cause_ -ing in the corner by the door, the impression ruined a little by his delicate tea cup and slice of battenburg.

Edith did her duty and kept Mrs Hughes from being caught alone with Mr Carson. He skulked around darting glances at his wife.

Anthony left as the festivities were winding down. Edith realised she was still wearing the coat and followed him outside.

"Sir Anthony!" She called across the car park and he turned back. She extricated herself from his coat, "Don't forget this. Thank you, I needed it, I'll admit."

He frowned at her, "did you bring one?"

"Today?" She tried to dodge the question, not wanting to confess her complete unpreparedness for her trip to the north.

"Did you bring a coat with you on this trip?"

"I have cardigans and jumpers and a couple of hoodies. An umbrella too." She waved it in his direction, "I'm fine."

"Did - you - bring - a - coat?" He spoke to her as though she was a child.

"Your tone really is quite -"

"Miss Crawley?" He interrupted.

"No. No I did not."

"Daft woman." It was first hint of a local accent, "keep the coat."

She was digging in now, "I don't need it."

Anthony stared at her and she looked right back at him. A Yorkshire standoff.

"Yes. You do. It's winter."

"I'm fine."

"Look, Miss Crawley, I've hundreds of coats. I've no need of this one. Keep it."

As if that was the final world on the issue, he turned to walk back to his car.

She shouted after him, "I'm not keeping it!"

He shouted right back, "Yes you are!"

Huffing, she marched back to the hall to find Anna. She had an idea, she smirked her triumph and whispered to herself, "No, I'm not."

She explained to Anna that Anthony had left the coat behind and asked her to return it to him when she got back to the house.

The victory was short lived.

The next morning she walked into a brown parcel left on the floor outside her room. It was tied with white string.

Inside was a blue wool hat, a scarf and the blasted Barbour.

There was a note underneath the clothes on a small rectangle of cream card. It was written in such awful scrawl it looked like it had been done by a child. The text read, "Yes you are."

At first she was minded to continue The Coat War. To deposit all back outside his bedroom, or perhaps on the table of his study. But the rain drummed insistently on the windows and his scent still lingered in the fabric.

Surrender wasn't so very bad.


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N Thank you, thank you, thank you for the reviews. They're very appreciated._

"Anthony!" The voice was almost lost on the wind. He popped his head over the wall and waved wildly in Maud's direction. She saw him across the field and set off towards him, swallowing up the ground with long strides. Her walk matched her personality: determined.

The weather played havoc with her short hair and for several moments it covered the entirety of her face. Pushing it back, she jammed a hat onto her head.

Picking a stone from the pile he brushed off the surface and set it in place. Stepping back, he adjusted it closer to the one next to it and tested to see that it wasn't too wobbly.

Maud reached him.

"Good morning." She said with a puzzled expression.

"We're not meeting today, are we?"

The routine dictated that half of the last Saturday of every month belonged to Maud, so she could go over the accounts and the business plans for the hotel. When Anthony declared his intention to save Locksley from sale or ruin, Maud had declared her intention to help. He scoffed and said a Cambridge mathematician turned City trader did not need assistance with business, but she hadn't listened. Every month, even as she berated him over some matter or another, he was thankful for that fact. Her help kept him in line and, often, kept up his enthusiasm for his gargantuan task.

"No, it's not today." She responded absentmindedly, her concentration was elsewhere. She frowned at the parcel of rocks on the floor and looked with trepidation at the half-built wall beside him, "what are you doing?"

He bent down to get another stone, "dancing the Macarena." He replied with a small, private smile.

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm building a dry stone wall."

"Well, yes. I can see that much, but why?"

"I'm pitching in." He set the next stone in place, standing back to see that it was approximately level.

"I see." She said the words in such a way that suggested she didn't _see_ at all, as though she was slightly concerned he'd gone round the bend. Although, the wall-building version of madness was infinitely preferable to the last incarnation of madness she'd seen him through, the one where he couldn't get out of bed from one day to the next.

"Do you remember coming here to meet my parents after Michaelmas term in second year?"

She nodded, "I do."

"My Father had us out building with him."

Her eyes widened with surprise. She smoothed the look away almost immediately.

"We spent a couple of hours working and then you and he had a blazing row about how pointless an exercise it was and how his time would be better spent managing the farms." She handed him the next stone.

"He said there were few tasks in life one can undertake and conclude with an absolute sense of achievement at the end because they are, in fact, finished."

"I believe you countered with 'raising a child'."

"I did!" He slapped his hand on his thigh and smiled, "And he said one was never finished raising a child."

"I seem to remember that setting off another row about him not acknowledging that you were now a grown man."

"Yes." He nodded, "it probably would've been easier to take me seriously on that score if you hadn't dyed that strip of blue through my hair."

"You asked me to! You were in that Adam Ant phase."

"Please don't remind me." Anthony patted the top of his wall, "Anyway, I understand now, what he meant. Life feels a bit like an endless parade of the unfinished. I need to achieve something. And fixing this wall needs to be done and I intend to do it."

The ravages of the northern weather, a rogue bull, a large tractor and the simple passage of time had punched a hole in the dry stone wall surrounding this particular parcel of land. It was Charlie's intention to use it for the sheep during the next year.

He carried on building and Maud laid a stone of her own, remembering the tutelage she'd received all those years ago.

Quietly, eyes focused on setting her contribution in place, she asked, "Do you know that's the first time you've mentioned your Father to me in - "

Anthony answered, "seven years?"

Maud leaned against the structure, tentatively at first, not quite trusting what he'd assembled and then letting her whole weight lean back when she realized it wouldn't crumble away, "about that."

"I try to avoid the topic, but, I gave his old desk away last week and I was reminded of him at the Harvest Festival on Thursday. And dry stone walls always make me think of him." He stood and stretched out his muscles, "Oh - don't look so worried Maud - it's not so very strange to find myself ready to talk about him, is it?"

She was absolutely still for a moment and then launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tight, "No."

His arm rested stock still by his side, half came up to wrap around her waist and then dropped down indecisively. He didn't relax into the embrace, he couldn't. It was a moment straight from their past, their physical intimacy had always been rigid and awkward.

"Sorry." She mumbled into his neck before stepping back and brushing the dust from her coat, "no, it's not strange. It's good, it's very good."

"It must be good." He said gruffly, "I'm trying to remember the last time you hugged me."

"Probably around the same sort of time we last talked about your father."

"I suspect you're right." He walked around the other side of the wall to check its strength from both directions, "How's Libby?"

Maud gave the same answer she'd been giving for the last eighteen months, "good." The voice was airy. Too airy. It was a lie. He knew it and she knew it, and what's more, she knew that he knew. That was the advantage, or disadvantage, of thirty years of friendship. No matter how broad the smile or how many teeth she bared when she gave it, he was very aware that things were not 'good'. He was also aware that she didn't want to talk about it and so he let the fiction exist between them. She'd unravel it when she needed to, and not before.

"Right –" She said, brusquely, "- enough sentimentality. I received the latest financial plans for the hotel."

In the blink of an eye, Maud transitioned to hard headed businesswoman.

"I sense this isn't a conversation for the top of a windy field."

"You sense correctly."

"Car's over there. We should go to the estate office, I've got all of the plans there and Bates's latest blasted quote for the glass extension."

"John's a good man. He'll be doing you the absolute best deal he can."

"That's rather scant comfort, Maud, when you're facing a hefty five figure bill." He held up his hands in mock triumph, "it could've been six figures! Lucky me! Why are you smiling? This is not funny!"

"I agree, but –"

"But, what?"

"That's the second joke you've made this morning."

"Why do the women in my life seem to think I can never make a joke?!"

"Because you never make jokes, not – " She looked down to the ground and back up at him, shaking her head a little, "well, you haven't recently."

"Oh, God, you're not going to hug me again?"

"Heavens no." She pointed to the floor behind him, "Don't forget the keys."

On turning around to retrieve them a bolt of gold in the distance caught his eye. A brush stroke across the increasingly greying sky. Over the brow of the horizon she came full into view. _Edith_.

Her hair was casting about her head like sandy waves in a storm. Around her neck was the thick wool of his blue scarf, the ends streamed out behind her, dancing with the wind. Her upper torso encased, he realised ecstatically, in his oversized coat. The cuffs were rolled up, exposing two bolts of the green striped lining. It hung down almost to mid-thigh; a Yorkshire parody of a Mary Quant mini-dress, although Edith's legs weren't bare. She was wearing jeans, he murmured a note of disapproval – if it rained they'd take on every iota of moisture and weigh her down, wet and heavy. The feet were a testament to good sense – sturdy walking boots, likely borrowed from Anna. She was someway in the distance but he could see that the exertion had flown kites of red into her cheeks.

Approaching a hedgerow, she hopped up over a stile and jumped down on the other side. The field she landed in was carpeted by heather. It appeared as if she was floating on a purple cloud. Probably assuming she was all alone in this quiet part of the world, she threw her arms out and spun. The sight was a reasonably common one in these parts, walkers climbed the hills and in ecstatic delight at the end of their exertions grasped at the most apt cultural reference. She was Maria Von Trapp.

An absurd idea occurred to him. He wanted to run. It would've made sense if he'd wanted to run away. But he didn't. He wanted to run towards her, to fold his arms about her waist and lift her clean off the ground.

There were certain times of the year when Locksley was a lovely place. The end of Spring and into Summer, it was very pleasant, bordering on idyllic. But most of the time Anthony thought of it as a harsh place. Cold and damp, forever making things more more difficult than they might otherwise be in another part of the country. He supposed that was part of the appeal of it for him. Better to feel the pain of doing something challenging than to feel nothing at all.

But with Edith in the middle of that field, twirling with abandon - all at once, the sun was on his back and he was laughing. It was summer at Locksley, and he was young again. The whole place was beautiful.

Maud's voice cracked through his reverie, "Anthony?"

The moment was like awakening from a deep sleep, he blinked heavily and wondered if he'd laughed out loud, entirely unsure what had been real and what had been imagined. Perhaps Edith wasn't there at all, maybe she was just a figment of his ever-addled brain. He groped at the ground for his car keys and turned back to Maud.

Her eyes were narrowed and she jerked her head at the space behind him, where he knew she must see Edith too, "Who's the girl?"

 _Girl_.

And wasn't that precisely the problem?

He shook his head, did a capable imitation of a shrug, "No idea." Her eyes were still narrowed. He smoothed out his expression as much as possible and asked the next question in the most even tone he could possibly employ, "ready to go?"

It had been a little too nonchalant, closer to homicidal sociopath than he would've liked. But she either believed him, which he doubted, or realised this was not the time to pry.

As they walked back to the car, surreptitiously, he glanced over his shoulder. She was gone.

The wind bit into his face and he was cold.

Maud berated him for three hours on the decision he'd made to slash the marketing and PR budget in order to pay for his glass ballroom. She threw around corporate buzzwords and accused him of being short-sighted. Never a woman for lack of preparation, she'd approached Bates about downscaling the plans to save money. Anthony was resolved, however, but allowed her to take his papers away to see if she could find an alternative solution before their regularly scheduled meeting in a few weeks' time.

By the time he got back to the house he was ready to put his feet up in front of the fire with a copy of the _FT_ and _The Spectator_. Backing into his study with a steaming cup of tea and the publications under his arm he intended to do exactly that.

He stopped short on finding Edith Crawley fast asleep on his sofa. The fire was already roaring and her boots sat in front of it, thick walking socks thrown over the guard. On the coffee table, next to his chess board was her laptop and mobile phone, along with a thick bundle of papers, which on closer examination had a title page – _Edith Crawley: Draft Thesis_.

In slumber her features were particularly delicate. Lips in a small pout, hands folded beneath her fine chin. Cheeks like peaches, still flushed, presumably from the fire, rather than her exertions.

For a moment he watched her and waited. Waited for the anger to creep up and out, for the annoyance show itself. He should want her out. Shake by the shoulders and show her the door. This was _his_ space. _His_ retreat. She'd invaded every aspect of his life, of his psyche, she wasn't allowed to have his study too.

But it never came. There was gratitude instead, and pleasure. He was glad to find her here, where she was never expected and yet so entirely right.

He tried to talk himself into the emotions. Reminded himself of Maud's earlier assessment - she's just a girl. And you're not a man who can twirl her around. But he couldn't manage to drum them up.

This was a little gift from the universe, and he decided to accept it, even if it came with hidden consequences.

From the bottom drawer of the bureau he retrieved a blanket and covered her resting form with it. She wriggled in her sleep and murmured.

He retrieved her thesis, setting aside his usual Saturday papers, he started to read that instead.


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N Sorry, sorry, sorry for the delay in posting. Cannot explain how crazy my fortnight has been. Thank you so much for all the reviews._

Yawning - her mouth a great, gaping chasm of post-nap satisfaction - she stretched her toes down to the very end of the sofa, pushing them into the soft fabric. The sound that accompanied the languorous extension of her limbs would've been impossible to write down – not an _oh_ , or _ah_ , or even an _oof_ – instead it was a collection of high pitched vowels strung together and elongated out of all sense and proportion. Her lips smacked at the end and she smiled.

The nap is such a fickle creature. Too little and it's simply a lazy waste of time. Too much and you end up feeling even more tired than before. This one had been perfection itself.

Then she realised she wasn't alone in the room. That the ridiculous post-snooze ritual had been witnessed by a chuckling spectator.

"Feeling refreshed?"

Slowly she turned, Anthony sat at the desk, feet up. He waved with barely concealed delight, fully aware, she had no doubt, that he'd caught her in a moment of mortification.

"Yes. I –" She attempted to swing her legs around but they'd become tangled. It took her a moment to realise it was because he'd covered her in a blanket, she smiled as she unfurled the fabric and continued, "I needed it. I went for a long walk earlier."

"Anywhere interesting?"

"Just around the - " The sentence came to an abrupt grinding halt when she saw that he was holding a bundle of papers. Panicked, she turned to the coffee table. Laptop. Notebook. Pens. Highlighter. No thesis.

She swerved back to him, "You haven't been reading my dissertation?!" She asked, disbelievingly. Her voice only sounded on the mild side of hysterical, a miracle given that she felt entirely hysterical at the idea.

He nodded in a manner which betrayed a complete lack of concern, "It was here, I was in want of reading material." She flicked a glance to the folded newspaper on his desk, "Those are from yesterday." He lied.

"I recognise _The Spectator_ when I see it. That is a weekly publication."

She stood, taking a couple of deep breaths. It's awful to have your work read, particularly when it's in progress. To expose your thinking and your intelligence and your authorship to the scrutiny of others. To have the layers peeled back, challenge the assumptions, undermine the arguments, expose the pockets of poor knowledge. Edith hated it from the time of her first supervision at Cambridge. She'd press her body into the recesses of the furthest chair possible from her professor's desk, fold her arms across her body. Every critique was a battle she was ill equipped to win. She could only hope to deflect the blows. Minimise the exposure.

Well, there was no minimising this. She was absolutely naked before him, and not in the good way she imagined when she was alone in her bed at night.

She didn't know what to hope for. She was afraid he'd say something and afraid he'd say nothing.

Anthony thumbed the pages, "It was very interesting. I liked it."

That was some mild praise. She still felt small and nervous. And annoyed, "It's unconscionably rude to read someone's unfinished work. Unless you're a teacher, or an editor, or a friend." She bit out, "It's personal."

"We're not friends then?"

She shot him a look, "I don't know what we are, but even a friend would wait to be asked." 

"I don't understand the problem. I said I liked it!" He held it out at her and she snatched it back. "It's less fiery than I thought it would be. You're so full of opinions I assumed I'd be bombarded with them on every page -"

Edith was short of breath. She tried for a couple of deep ones, but it was as though all the oxygen had gone from the room. Perhaps it was the heat. It couldn't be that though, because she was cold and numb. He carried on blabbering in the background, ' _quiet authorship_ ', ' _little comment'_ , _'just simple facts_ '. There was a ringing in her ears and she shouted over him, "Will you stop!"

Finally, she caught some breaths and leant on the fire surround, rested her forehead on the cool marble.

Warm fingers squeezed the top of her arm. She looked up at him. He looked concerned, and, she was pleased to see, a little sheepish.

"I'm sorry, I'm very sorry. Somehow, I've said the wrong thing. I've upset you. That wasn't my intention." He shook his head, "I didn't mean to. I don't know anything about history, Miss Crawley. It's probably a work of genius and I'm not expressing it right."

She pulled away from his grip. Afraid if she didn't she'd cast herself into the middle of his chest and beg him to put his arms around her whilst she sobbed. That kind of comfort wasn't on offer and she wouldn't try and take it from him.

"You haven't offended me. The truth is, it isn't very good. You might not know anything about history Sir Anthony, but you've hit on exactly the reason why. It's well structured, with good prose and my research is meticulous. But there's no fire in it. No opinion." She rolled up the pages in her hand, "a great historian reads about the past and spins some new perspective on it." She went into lecture mode, "Linda Kerber read the letters of Abigail Adams and said that she was the creator of 'republican motherhood.' Adams urged her husband to 'remember the ladies' when he went to the Continental Congress because they would raise the next generation of republican men. E.H. Carr said all history was whig, written by men who assumed progress towards greatness was the natural order of things. Duffy argued that Catholicism was alive and well in England prior to the Reformation, contrary to everything that had been written by everyone in all the time before he wrote his thesis. He revolutionised the way people think about religion in the early modern period."

She sniffed, "I am no Kerber, or Carr, or Duffy. There it is."

"That's rot." She scowled, "It is. Perhaps this thesis isn't there yet, but you're intelligent and thoughtful and full of opinions. There's no saying that it cannot become a Kerber, or a Carr or a –"

"Duffy."

"Precisely."

"Thank you for the pep talk." Even if she didn't believe she could do what he was saying, it was nice to know Anthony, at least, believed in her. However misguidedly. "Anyway –" She shook her head, trying to expel the embarrassment, "I should leave you to it. The last thing you need is me –"

"Have you eaten?"

At the mention of food her stomach piped up, churning out a little gurgle, "I haven't actually."

"Stay and have supper with me."

At that moment she hated her polite instincts, and her shy ones. They ganged up on her loneliness, rebelling against the thoroughly appealing idea of staying here with him.

"Oh no. I couldn't impose."

"No imposition."

"Well –" She crossed her arms and uncrossed them, rocked on the balls of her feet and stopped abruptly when her grandmother's voice announced itself in the recesses of her brain - _stop fidgeting!_

"You need the company." He said, and it wasn't a question.

How could he know that? She frowned, and he proved that he did know, he knew precisely, "You'll go back up to your bedroom with nothing more to do but look at that thesis and you'll wallow and you'll worry and you'll berate. I know the face of someone heading into an evening of self-flagellation."

She took in a breath to launch into a defence, but failed completely to shape any words. He was right. Before the night was out she'd be so far inside her own head she'd barely recognise good from bad, it would all be one large mass of despair. She already felt brittle, like an autumn leaf, ripe to crush and crumble.

"Stay." He declared it, wouldn't brook any further discussion, "I'll do us a picnic supper." He cast his eyes around the room, "do you play chess?"

"In the sense I understand the rules, but I haven't played properly since school."

"We'll play chess then. How about that?"

Edith's social instincts, so rarely on the ascendant, won out over the others. She wanted to stay here, with Anthony, in this warm, safe room.

Still, she acted as though he hadn't quite sold her on the idea, "Do you have any alcohol?"

That particular soft smile formed on his face, the dimple winked. He was pleased to be getting his way, "Oh, I think I can manage something. What's your poison? Wine, whiskey, G&T?"

"G&T." She answered immediately. He smirked.

Anthony returned from the kitchen with a large tray laden with delicious looking treats. Cheese, chutney and crackers. A little prosciutto and smoked salmon. And, as if to remind her precisely where they were in the world, pork pies. He set it all down on the coffee table and went out to retrieve the drinks.

Edith banked the fire, a skill she picked up quickly when she arrived at Locksley, with its patchy central heating and sparsity of radiators. She sat back on her heels and let the warmth simmer through her bones alongside the anticipation of a good meal and good company.

It was hard to pinpoint exactly when she'd started to think Sir Anthony Strallan might be good company. All her assessments of his character had proved to be true and many of them weren't positive. He was intransient and grumpy and a know-it-all. But he was also smart and kind and intriguing.

Then there was the fact he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen.

She watched him cut a piece of cheese before placing it atop a cracker and clumsily ladling on some chutney. The construction required angling to fit into his mouth. She watched its journey, the flick of his tongue catching some errant crumbs on his top lip. It wasn't until she realised he was frowning at her that she appreciated mere watching had become staring.

Those lips. That tongue. The kiss. He could warm her just as effectively as the fire.

"What?" He asked, puzzled, "Is it around my mouth?"

She flushed, "No. No it's not."

"Eat."

"Do you know how to phrase anything in a manner which does not sound like an order?"

"It sounded like an order, Miss Crawley, because it was one. Eat. You're hungry and you're standing on ceremony."

She rolled her eyes and tucked in as instructed, too hungry to do anything else.

The first G&T was relaxing, the second went to her head in the best way, rendered her mellow and pliable. She and Anthony talked about his day building walls. He couldn't have been very far from where she'd walked. His meeting with his business manager hadn't gone very well. Edith agreed with the woman that cutting the marketing budget was unwise. They debated the point. An impartial onlooker might have called it a row, but it was entirely without sting, a full and frank exchange of views.

At the end of the conversation Anthony conceded, "You've made some good points."

She smiled wide and opened her mouth in shocked delight, raising her hands to an invisible cheering crowd, "Good points! You hear that? Sir Anthony Strallan thinks I, the useless academic, have made some good points." She held her hand in to her heart and bowed her head at him in mock gratitude, "This _truly_ is a red letter day."

"I never said you were useless."

"You're intent on writing a revisionist history of our interactions then?"

"I never said useless."

"No, you're right, but you did say, I didn't matter, which is the same thing."

"Not at all. I never said _you_ didn't matter. I said your work doesn't –" He trailed off, "I was an ass."

The shock of that declaration caused her gin to attempt the wrong direction down her throat. She choked a little and spluttered and had to wipe her chin with the back of her hand. A smooth, ladylike moment.

Trying to laugh it off she said, "You were."

"Forgive me?" The atmosphere was serious in an instant. He looked intently across at her, mouth narrowed, the left eye slightly smaller than the right. There was anguish in the expression, a measure of such concern it took her aback. There wasn't anything she wouldn't do, she realised, to take him back to the ease he displayed only moments ago, to smooth away all his distress.

"Of course."

"Thank you. You can take white."

"My reward for forgiveness?"

He inched his king so it was in the absolute centre of its square, "No." His eyes flicked up to her, "You'll need the advantage. I'm excellent at chess."

"Modest too."

Chess was a game for voyeurs, although she only appreciated this unusual fact on watching Anthony Strallan play. She took her moves quickly in order to get to the pleasure of his turns. The thick golden hair on his forearm. The bend and flex of the bands of muscle in his neck. A tooth sunk into his bottom lip and scores of concentration furrowed into the space above his nose. His hand, solid and weatherworn, feathering the pointed spokes of the queen's crown. He took his move and sat back into the thick cushions of the sofa, hiking up his trouser leg to reveal a band of pale skin above his ankle bone. Such a thing should not, under any definition of the word, have been erotic, but it was. It made her mouth water, this small part of him, usually hidden from her view and now accidentally on display.

"Edith?"

"Yes." Eyes wide, she feigned normalcy.

"Your move."

"Right."

His fingers came up and scratched his jaw. Lovely jaw as well. She dragged her attention, kicking and screaming, to the matter at hand. Moved a bishop .

"You should ask me about it." 

"Pardon?"

"You should ask me about it." He was looking at her then, a resigned sort of grimace on his face.

She sat back on her heels, stuttered out some non-descript vowels, heart quickening in her breast.

It was unexpected, this opportunity to talk about the kiss. And, low and behold, the usual reaction Edith had to unexpected situations occurred. All the things she'd thought about the kiss, all the questions she had, comments, queries, all of it; every piece of knowledge she'd ever possessed about anything, emptied straight out of her head. She was dumbstruck.

"It doesn't usually take people this long to ask."

 _He'd shared illicit kisses with people?! Plural?!_

"I don't follow."

He cut off a chunk of Cornish yarg, "Sometimes it's the first thing people say to me. You've held out longer than anyone I've ever met."

Now she was entirely flummoxed. 

"I'm not sure – what on earth are you talking about?"

He tilted his head, "my arm." She watched it as it lifted the cheese to his mouth. It hovered in the air between them, "My _other_ arm, Miss Crawley."

His right arm curled across his stomach resting in his lap.

She shook her head, perplexed, "What about it?"

His lips parted slightly and he put down his morsel of food, speaking slowly, "The fact that its immobilised. I can't move it or my hand. The wretched thing is no use to man nor beast."

She wanted to interrupt. To explain that he was wrong. It might be his arm, but he was certainly wrong because she'd seen him use it. Hadn't she?

There was the time –

Or last week when –

When they met he definitely –

Spindles of embarrassment crawled across her skin, coalesced on her back. Her cheeks flamed. She stood up and crossed her arms.

"Oh. I – I – "

Edith prided herself on her powers of observation. That's what introverted people did, they observed others. Took in life by osmosis. And yet, this had passed her by entirely.

He sat forward on the sofa and pointed at her, "Oh my God, you didn't notice."

"I – I –" The words wouldn't come, because she was suddenly flooded with all the times it should have been the most obvious thing in the world.

"You really didn't did you?" 

"That's why your car doesn't have a gearstick." She spoke in a daze, glassy eyed.

"Specially modified."

"You're right handed; I take it? So the note about the coat."

"Learning to write with the wrong hand was one of the most difficult tasks. I can just about manage it now, but the art of penmanship is lost to me."

"When I did my back in, that's why you couldn't carry me."

"What other reason would there have been?"

"And when you shave –" She threw her hands over her face, wished she could jump into the fire, Harry Potter- like, and find herself someplace else, "Oh, God. I laughed at you." She mumbled through her fingers, "That morning with all the nicks - you must have thought I was mocking your disability."

"I did rather."

"Oh _God_. I wasn't, I wasn't at all." She covered her eyes again. Plunged herself into the black, like a child who thought if they couldn't see something then it must not be happening. But it was.

Then he laughed. A few snickers at first and then he was positively guffawing. She inched her index and middle finger apart, peaked out at him. His shoulders were shaking, his eyes shone with tears and he was smiling. Laughing his disbelief, "How can you _possibly_ not have noticed?"

"It isn't funny!" She crossed her arms. Bubbles of laughter started to coalesce in her throat, but she wanted to stay serious, schooling her mouth into a thin line.

"It is! Like not noticing the trees in the middle of a forest, or the front door to a house. Like standing in front of Parliament and saying ' _isn't there supposed to be a big clock_?'"

She paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, snickered a little. Stopping, she shook her head, "well – " She giggled, "What can I say? I wasn't looking at your arms!"

"What were you looking at?!" The joke continued.

"Your face!" She sucked in a breath, but it was too late to draw back the honest words from the ether between them.

He stilled, exhaling a few last gasps of mirth before silence set over the room.

He cocked his head and Edith thought - _ah, well, in for a penny, in for a pound_.

She sighed, "you're very beautiful, you know."

If he had a reaction to that, he didn't betray it. They looked at one another for long moment and then he broke her gaze, reached out and moved a pawn.

"You need to protect your rook." He advised.

Silently exasperated, she knelt back down on the cushion beside the coffee table and examined the game, "I'm sacrificing the rook."

"Why?"

"You'll expose your queen."

"Where?"

"Three moves from now."

The legs curled back under him, little strip of pale leg winking out again. He scratched his chin and stared intently at the board.

This was the moment. She knew it was. It couldn't get much worse. She'd revealed herself to be an unobservant idiot and confessed to finding him beautiful.

The insistent voice in her head was badgering her: _Just ask the question. Do it._

 _Are we ever going to talk about our kiss?_

So simple.

But he was studiously refusing to meet her eye now. Concentrating just on the game. There was no acknowledgment of her confession, not so much as a twitch in his cheek muscle, and, with that sobering thought, a different question altogether slipped out.

"What happened to your arm?"

The board still appeared to occupy his attention. He sighed and castled his king, "a car accident."


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N Sorry, sorry for the delay. Thank you for the reviews._

"A car accident."

That was a complete answer to her question. There was no need to offer any more, but he found he was quite unable to stop the rest of it spilling out.

"My Father picked me up from Skipton station on 23 December 2008. We argued on the way home. He ran a red light, quite inadvertently. A lorry hit the driver's side. He was killed and I was injured. They patched most of me up, but couldn't save the use of the arm. I had some movement for a little while and, eventually, nothing."

Simple, basic words which belied the trauma of the accident and the absolute horror of the aftermath. It was a particular species of humiliation to discover, at forty-three years of age, he wasn't half the man he thought. This lovely young woman wouldn't find him beautiful if she understood how ugly he'd become.

"Oh, Sir Anthony, I'm so sorry." Her voice cracked with sympathy.

There had been so much bloody sympathy, too much and he didn't want that from her. Not when there could be laughter, or intellectual insults from between pursed lips, or the breathless exhalation of his name as she came.

Panic rose in his throat. He wanted her. It was a terrible thing. He pushed up from the sofa, nearly upending the chessboard, swallowed down a wave of nausea. In vain he tried to steady his breathing, but it was as though he'd run a marathon in a matter of minutes.

He stuttered out some words, "I-I have to get back to work." He riffled though the papers on his desk. A blur of numbers and accounts and architect's sketches, sheep dispatch numbers and yield forecasts.

"So you're not going to finish the game?" She sounded more annoyed than anything else. He glanced over and she raised her chin, "afraid I'll beat you?"

The small smile she gave him then, and the twinkle in her eye which accompanied it, shot straight through his gut. He wanted to play this game with her over and over. To see this quietly confident, clever, lovely young woman on the other side of their shared chessboard for the rest of his life.

The urge to protect himself was overwhelming. These were foolish, dangerous fantasies. He couldn't bear another loss, to slip back into the black abyss. This woman wasn't for him. The fear ran roughshod over everything else swirling in his busy mind – desire, hope, joy - it was all obliterated in its wake.

What happened next was the unavoidable result of honed mental muscle memory, as inevitable as the lifting of a leg under the weight of a doctor's hammer.

He screwed his good hand into a fist, pressed his nails into his palm as hard as he could and addressed his words to the white of his knuckles, "You finding me beautiful is a mistake. And I should never have said I find you beautiful." The lies didn't come as easily as he anticipated, they filled his mouth like tar, he had to spit them out, heavy and black, "Because I don't. I'm not remotely interested in you in that way."

The silence sat heavy between them, he didn't want to look at her. Perhaps he was afraid the truth would be writ large on his face, or worse, perhaps he wasn't afraid of that at all. Better she should see he was a liar, and then maybe she'd forgive him for it. Tell him again he was beautiful. Allow another kiss. Allow even more than that.

And then, eventually, she'd leave. Another wave of anxiety crawled across his back, weighed on his shoulders. He bent low towards the desk and took several gratuitous gulps of air.

She asked, quietly, "What about the kiss?"

"The kiss was a mistake too." That lie came easier than the last, he barked it out, as if it was the most obvious statement anyone had ever made in the whole history of argument and rhetoric. He was coming into his stride now, remembering how to force people away, "As I said. I'm just not remotely interested you in that way."

There was a muted intake of breath from the space behind him, he squeezed his eyes shut.

"I'm not –"

"Don't!" He cut her off, harshly, "For once, don't argue with me." He'd managed the words, but he didn't think he could manage to sustain them in an argument.

It seemed, though, that she intended to argue, "Are you quite finished?"

There was the flash of teacher in her, for a moment he was fourteen years old and back at Rugby on the receiving end of a fully warranted telling off.

"Miss Crawley -"

"Sir Anthony, I'll argue with whomever I damn well please, whenever I damn well want."

Perversely, the sharpness in her voice buoyed him a little, the panic receded. He scrounged up sufficient courage to turn around and look at her, "Yes, that much I've gathered."

"Well then." She folded her arms across her stomach and looked away from him, "For my part, I do think you're beautiful, I didn't say it in some ill considered moment of madness. And as for the kiss -" Picking up a pawn, she rolled it between thumb and forefinger, "Suffice to say I didn't think that was a mistake, but -."

"I -"

"Do stop interrupting me, Sir Anthony." She said, in that same schoolmarmish tone, "but, if it makes you uncomfortable, I won't mention it again. I've had a very pleasant evening with you and I don't want it tainted by a row." Her eyes were big and brown, she replaced the chess piece, "Not to mention that I can't be more than ten moves away from winning this game and I'd rather like to finish, please?"

It was a miracle that she still wanted anything at all to do with him. He'd snapped at her and rejected her. Yet, here she was, gesturing towards the sofa, beckoning him to sit. He told himself that all they were doing was finishing the game.

Settling back into the same spot where, just a moment earlier, he could no longer bear to stay, Anthony said, "I'm a knight to the good, and I've castled. You don't think your optimism is premature?"

"You're about to lose another bishop."

"Am not!" Back on neutral territory, the remaining tendrils of anxiety receded back to lurk in the pit of his stomach; they'd never go completely.

It took him a solid few minutes to assess the board. She puffed out an impatient sigh and leant back on her elbows.

"I won't be rushed, Miss Crawley."

"You don't say." She deadpanned.

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit."

She smirked, "But the highest form of intelligence."

Retreat was the only option to save his bishop. It was her fault he'd exposed it, shock from her revelations. He took the necessary move.

She sat forwards and took her turn before he'd even released his bishop's mitre. Her queen moved six squares on the diagonal and took his. Edith waved it at him.

"Christ!"

She chuckled and clapped her hands, "I'm not going to lie - that felt good."

"You cheated!"

"I did no such thing! Quite the contrary, I warned you, you were going to expose your queen!"

"Yes. But I only did that because you made me think I needed to protect the bishop."

She shrugged, "Lodge a complaint."

They played on a little longer, but he was merely delaying the inevitable.

"Check." He moved. "Check." He moved. "Check." He moved and she was silent.

Checkmate.

They both knew it.

A beat passed and he thought she was reaching for her queen to finish him off, but instead her hand came over the board and covered his. Tiny threads of dirt filled the crevices on the surface of his knuckles from his earlier efforts in the field. Gently, she brushed across them with her thumb.

"Thank you for a lovely evening. If you want to talk about your Father or what happened, I'd be happy to listen and I promise not to be my usual opinionated self -" She laughed, and he just looked, intently, at her still-moving thumb, "not about that in any event."

She stood and gathered her things - thesis folded under her arm, laptop and notebook heaved onto hip, pencil case in her spare hand, "good night, Sir Anthony."

And she was gone.

"Bloody hell, Strallan." He said, to the empty room. There was no strength left in him to move to his desk, although he would've appreciated the availability of a wooden surface against which he could bang his head. Repeatedly.

He'd wanted to push her away and he'd succeeded. Usually it left him with a feeling of vindication; he'd congratulate himself on his good sense in avoiding a painful emotional entanglement. Alone was safe.

Not so this time. A small part of his brain, or, more likely, his heart, suggested that an emotional entanglement with Edith Crawley might be worth the pain.

Ensconced in the far corner of his large sofa, where Edith's head rested in sleep only a few hours earlier, Anthony wondered if he was the last human left on planet earth. Never had his study - full of books and papers and activity - felt so utterly empty. Alone might be safe, but it was also lonely.

The carriage clock ticked insistently above the mantel and the fire coughed and spluttered to ever-lowering embers.

 _I'm not remotely interested in you that way._

If he'd met a more intriguing woman, or man, he couldn't remember them.

"Fucking, Christ."

Anthony pushed off the sofa and went upstairs, leaping two at a time. Once there, he simply stood and stared at Edith's bedroom door. A razor of white light was painted beneath the wood, casting a little brightness into the gloom of the windowless hallway.

In his mind he performed an entire speech. After offering her a dazzling smile, he'd apologise, profusely, for snapping at her, for lying. He'd confess that, of course, he does find her beautiful, and, even more than that, witty, intelligent and thoughtful too. The kiss, he'd admit, was the exact opposite of a mistake. A scene played out in which some long-gone charming and confident version of himself, swooped in and won her over with earnest words and honest expression. Even more unbelievably, this fictional Anthony was unafraid of his own feelings and wasn't filled with terror at the notion he might find some happiness and then lose it.

There was no earthly way he could pull it off. The problem was that he only realised how utterly inevitable it was that he would fail as he was knocking on her door.

It opened quickly. The slither of light became a flood with Edith illuminated in the midst of it.

She was balancing her phone underneath her chin. Her head tilted and she raised a finger at him, "Sorry Tom? Tom?" She said to the person on the other end of the line, "Listen, I'm going to have to call you back." She rolled her eyes and smiled, "Ok. Don't burn the dinner. Yes, I know. I'll ring later this week. Alright, I love you too, bye."

 _I love you too? Who the hell is Tom?_

Far from the imagined declaration of adoration, he stumbled over some mumbled attempts at sentences. Staggering towards the finish line of a race he was never going to win.

"Is everything alright, Sir Anthony?"

From some mysterious place within, he dredged up a completely unplanned question, "Would you like to learn to drive?"


	14. Chapter 14

Each trill of the unanswered telephone caused the lump in her throat to rise a notch higher. The tears were moments away. Pacing across her bedroom she pushed her phone into the shell of her ear. Her thoughts alternated wildly.

 _PickUpPickUpPickUp_

 _DoNotCryDoNotCryDoNotCry_

This day sucker-punched Edith squarely in the gut, almost conspired to build her up, just to be able to rip her down again. It was a conceited thought, she knew this. Like something Mary might think: that some all-seeing power cared enough about her small little life to take the time to stack her particular deck so she first appeared to be winning, only to lose everything, all at once.

The only man she'd ever liked had soundly rejected her. Inevitable, she supposed, but still painful. How stupid, to have reached twenty-seven years of age, with three serious boyfriends in her past, several more less serious ones, but not to have _really_ liked any man. Until, that is, Sir Anthony Strallan.

Some of the men in her past were nice enough guys, of course. Earnest Daniel at school. A friend of Matthew's, full of acne and good intentions, so apologetic over the messy business of taking her virginity. There was John at Cambridge, who took her punting and to at least three balls in May week and who held her hair when she was sick from an excessive amount of pennying at Hall. Always willing to run through early modern flashcards even though he was a _physnatsci_ and couldn't have cared less when Elizabeth I died. He loved her and told her so. Even Gregson, who had many, many faults, was relatively nice.

She'd been so grateful for each of them. So pleased to find that someone – anyone - wanted her around she'd ignored all their faults, concealed her own and lived a contrived existence. Daniel's Edith, then John's Edith, followed by Gregson's Edith. Between them she'd been Mike's and Derek's and Alex's, until one of the two of them couldn't bear the fiction anymore.

Amidst all that desperation she failed to stop and ask the central question – _do I want this person?_

Now she'd met Anthony, she knew what it meant to want someone. It wasn't straightforward, it wasn't simply a matter of discovering that they wanted you and that being sufficient. Anthony didn't want her, after all, but she still wanted him. She wasn't sure she even liked him half the time, other than the way he looked. The why of her attraction was unanswered, a scattered jigsaw, but the fact of it was absolutely undeniable. She was drawn to him as a boat is to the horizon, an inevitable chase.

And now it was over, before it'd even begun. And she'd never get to find out what might become of her, of him, of them, if she could put all that proper, genuine wanting to use. Would she be braver, stronger, funnier, happier? Would he? Perhaps it would make her different, or perhaps she'd stay precisely the same and be comfortable with that fact.

Well, she'd never know now.

 _PickUpPickUpPickUp_

 _DoNotCryDoNotCryDoNotCry_

"Edith!" Sybil squealed down the phone.

Sitting on the bed, her legs gave way with relief, "Syb, you nearly deafened me!"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Liar. Tell me."

Edith lay back on the bed, let the folds of the duvet envelope her and sighed down the phone. She'd forgotten Sybil's emotional sixth sense. It was impossible to conceal even one ounce of unhappiness from her and tonight she had more than an ounce, it weighed the whole of her down.

"It's – just –" Momentarily, it was on the tip of her tongue to tell it all. That she hadn't found the diary in Yorkshire, but she thought she might have found something else, "I'm lonely. It's lonely up here."

"Oh, love. We'll come up and visit!" In the background Tom protested in hushed but audible tones.

"Sybil. You're eight months pregnant. You cannot come to Yorkshire."

"Yes we can!"

"No, you can't. You'll end up having the baby here and we're about a billion miles from civilisation. The nearest thing to a midwife is the farmhand who manages the lambing."

"I've seen the videos at the birthing classes. It's not so very different, I'll bet."

A chuckle became a snotty sob, rolling over, she pushed her face into the duvet cover and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Edie? Edith?"

A deep breath and she wrestled her emotions into some semblance of order, "Yep. I'm here, I'm still here."

"What can I do?"

"Talk to me about something that doesn't matter, something silly. Make me laugh."

"Alright." She paused a moment, "How about the epic size of my ankles? I never understood what people meant by cankles, but I've got a _helluva_ a pair now. I never understood the attraction of a delicate pair of ankles until mine were lost beneath my inexplicable elephantine weight gain. You know those ninety-year-old women coaxing swollen feet into ugly leather shoes straight from the '50s? That's me now. It's only a little baby, Edith, and neither Tom nor I are that big, how is it possible I've gained so much weight and in every conceivable location? There's still a month to go and I'm a big fat lump."

In the background she heard Tom shout, "Not fat! Beautiful! Growing a life!"

She could see them, in their tiny flat. Sybil lying on the sofa. Tom in the kitchen, cooking up a storm, closing the space between them every few minutes to kiss her or touch her, possibly bringing a wooden spoon to offer a taste. A spike of loneliness, or unfair jealousy, darted through her abdomen.

"Tom's right, you're pregnant, not fat. But the image of your cankles does tickle me. What else you got?"

Pregnancy, for the unpregnant, at least, was a veritable smorgasbord of amusing anecdote. Sybil had been quite unable to deal with it with any kind of grace. She told Edith about the screaming match she had with a scared teenage boy on the tube who had the audacity to sit in the priority seat whilst she was stood right in front of him cradling her belly. She sent Tom out for a whole variety of strange foods at all times of the day. At their local bar she often ordered a glass of Chablis so she could simply sit and smell it. She had a calendar counting down to her due date, she'd long since crossed out the word 'due' and written 'wine'. Then there was Tom's very Irish grandmother who called them at least once a day to ask about the position of the baby, what food Sybil was craving, which particular muscles were aching. All the answers to these questions, no matter how contradictory they were from one day to the next, was a sign they were having a boy. Sybil had perfected a brilliant imitation of the accent, 'That settles it then, it's a boy, to be sure, to be sure.'

"She keeps threatening to come over for the birth, I can only imagine what a disappoint it would prove to be if we have a girl. Oh – oh –"

"Everything ok?"

"No. I need to pee for about the thirtieth time today. Tom? Come speak to Edie would you?"

There was muffled movement at the end of the line and a groan from Sybil, presumably as she levered herself into a standing position and waddled off to the toilet.

"Edie?"

"Hi Tom."

"She looks radiant, really. How are you?" He asked the question solemnly, knowing, from Sybil's side of the conversation, that the answer wasn't good. 

"Feeling better for speaking to you two."

"We're always here."

She nodded vigorously, swallowed down another threatening wave of tears.

"Edie?"

"I'm nodding."

"Bollocks!"

"Everything ok?"

Tom's answer was swallowed up by the sound of a firm knock at her bedroom door. She gasped and sat up, staring at the greying white paint.

It was probably Anna.

Her stupid, reckless heart hoped for someone else though, and raced at a mile a minute as she approached the handle and turned the cool metal.

It thumped its ridiculous approval on finding Anthony in the hallway. Lacking any sense of self preservation, she smiled slightly, as if she was pleased to find him there, because she was pleased to find him there. Despite the fact that he'd determinedly rejected her in the clearest terms possible scant minutes earlier.

In the dim light of the corridor his blue eyes glistened and he seemed to want to speak. She raised a finger to silence him. She needed to get rid of Tom first. He was prattling on at the other end of the line, something about burnt rice and a broken microwave.

"Sorry Tom? Tom?"

"I think I might have done the Bombay potatoes for too long as well. Syb! Syb! You couldn't come and stir this could you?"

There followed a momentary exchange between husband and wife and she had to interrupt, "Listen, I'm going to have to call you back."

"It's fine. I'll be under control in a moment."

She rolled her eyes at Anthony and smiled again, knowing her luck she'd never escape this conversation and he'd be gone.

"Spoke too soon. Edie this is a full on culinary crisis now."

"Ok. Don't burn the dinner."

"Sorry, I just need both hands to deal with this nightmare."

"Yes, I know. I'll ring later this week."

"Ring before then if you need to, love you. Sybil loves you too." She heard her sister shout the sentiment in the background.

"Alright, I love you too, bye."

Swallowing, she looked down at the screen of her phone to make sure it had disconnected, a pointless distraction designed to carve a few moments to compose her thoughts.

The warmth in his face had faded somewhat. He addressed a few syllables, primarily in the region of her knees.

She hoped, rather than expected, that perhaps his nerves arose from an impending confession of enormous affection. Finally, his tongue might trip to the desired words – _I am interested in you._

It wasn't so very much to ask. Staring intently at his mouth she almost thought she could will them to emerge, manipulate his mind to sit in concert with her own. She reminded herself, with a big mental kick to the head that, even if she had such a ludicrous power, she'd be using it to create a fiction and that would be pointless.

He didn't want her. She should accept it and move on. There would be someone, eventually, who required no persuasion to like her as much as she liked them.

Eventually, no longer able to bear the tension, she broke the silence with an arched eyebrow. Her voice retained an admirable measure of calm, "Is everything alright, Sir Anthony?"

Even if she'd brainstormed the situation for an entire year, with word for word written transcripts of their conversations and close-circuit video of their every interaction, she could not have predicted what he said next.

"Would you like to learn to drive?"

She leant on the door surround and rubbed her hand across her eyes, trying desperately to process the question. Flung at her out of nowhere, she almost suspected she'd misheard it, " _What_?"

"Would you like to learn to drive?" He raised his eyebrows and his voice, as if she was simple.

"I thought that's what you said. I – I - honestly, I have never given it any thought."

"You're twenty-seven. You should be able to drive." He said, bluntly. The tone he deployed was about as far away from romance, or passion, or even affection, as it was possible to get.

"Yes, you've made your thoughts on this quite clear before."

"Well. It's true. You're at a loose end whilst you're here - you don't have anything to do in the evenings or at the weekends. I'll give you lessons." 

Stepping back to usher him into her bedroom, he shook his head at the invitation.

"For heaven's sake."

It was ridiculous to conduct a conversation on the threshold of a room with comfortable chairs, light and, crucially, proper heating, but, apparently, he was determined not to come in, despite having seen it before. Perhaps he was afraid she'd tumble him onto the bed. An enticing prospect, but a seductive feat far beyond her very limited capabilities.

She strolled past him, down the hallway and flicked the landing light on. There was an uncomfortable bench at the top of the stairs, which probably hadn't been used in about a hundred and twenty years. Gingerly, she sat on it, "That's true enough but you have things to do in the evenings and weekends. You're trying to build a hotel, remember?"

"I'm hardly likely to forget that, Miss Crawley."

Somehow, they were bickering.

And she was enjoying it.

 _Stupid, stupid._

"And, yet, you appear to have done so. You told me once that you had twenty-five things to be doing on a seemingly ordinary Tuesday afternoon. They'll soon mount up if you're trying to teach me to drive."

"Let me worry about my own to do list."

"I'd happily do so, except I now appear to be an item on it." She flushed an egregious shade of the darkest red and immediately but inelegantly corrected the slip, "My driving that is. My driving, or lack thereof – my inability to drive - is an item on it."

For a moment it appeared as though he was going to sit down next to her, but he paused and turned around, leaning on the wall opposite instead.

"Please, I'd like – it would be – you –" He cleared his throat, casting a long look at the floor beneath his feet before continuing, "It would make me feel useful. I built that wall today and felt useful. This would be useful to you – because, eventually, you will regret you cannot drive - and I can facilitate it."

He took a deep breath and the blue eyes searched her face, " _Please_."

It was a proposal for the most ordinary of endeavours and he put in the plainest, most prosaic of terms – unadorned, unvarnished with anything approaching emotion.

 _Except_.

Except, for that final _please_.

That please was packed full of emotion, like a bubble blown through a child's toy, shiny and fat, shimmering in the light, just on the brink of popping.

And, it seemed to Edith, the emotions it contained could have nothing to do with driving. It was full of longing, of _desire_.

She was going to find out, "Shall we start tomorrow?"


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N I'm so, so sorry for the delay in posting. I do actually have much of this written, it's just adding stuff and proof-reading (although I always seem to miss at least one glaring error) takes time and I don't have very much of it. Please do hang in there with me. Thank you for all the reviews._

It might have been Sunday, the day of the week practically designated by law for a luxurious lie in, but Edith found she was wide awake and staring at the cracks in the ceiling before 7.30am. Her body hummed with anticipation, as though she was eight years old on Christmas morning.

After a while she decided any further attempt to drift back to sleep was futile. Getting up, she banked the fire, showered and properly blow dried her hair. The ache in her arms was a testament to how long it had been since she'd last attempted such a feat. She even used a little product to damp down the natural frizz her hair tended towards. Before she applied mascara, she stopped and examined her reflection in the speckled mirror on the dressing table.

Anthony had seen her in the morning - pre-bathroom break and after her long walk through the Locksley countryside. He'd seen her the previous day, sprawling and yawning after a long nap and with a hunk of glass in her hand the first time they met. He'd seen her in every conceivable state of dishevelment.

If there was desire in his eyes, if there was longing, it was for the woman he already knew. And that woman didn't blow dry her hair poker straight and attempt to 'tame the flyaways' followed by a liberal application of makeup. She put down the _YSL_.

Sitting at her desk, she tried to drag her reluctant brain to the issue of work, to pass some of the interminable time before the lesson. She sent emails to her Mother and Father, Sybil and - on the clear and insistent instructions of Sybil - Mary, although it amounted to three measly sentences and finished with a lukewarm, ' _Best, E_.'

Michael Gregson continued to pester. She continued to ignore him. She couldn't however, ignore the email from her faculty's admin department reminding her of her obligation to undertake at least eight hours of teaching a week as part of her PhD funding arrangement. At the start of term, she'd run a series of revision and refresher sessions and banked a large number of hours. Given her recent absence she was perilously close to using them up.

The thought of returning to London turned her stomach, looped it into a knot. She slammed the screen of her laptop shut. Taking steadying breaths, she concentrated on the prospect of the day ahead. The thought of seeing Anthony eased the tangle, gave her the sense she might find the ends and be able to tease it undone entirely.

She turned to the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It couldn't hurt to be a little early for the lesson.

In the entrance hall Anna and Bates were engaged in what her grandmother would call 'heavy petting'. She made sure her feet tapped on the floor. When that didn't break them apart, she announced herself, "good morning!"

They jumped apart like two caught teenagers. Both flushed, with embarrassed smiles.

She recalled her kiss with Anthony and prayed it would not be the last.

"Morning Edith."

"John." She nodded at him.

He looked down at Anna, "I'll see you in a few days."

"He's going away for the week." Anna offered.

"I see, hence the big send off."

Bates looked over to Edith and down at Anna and back to Edith and, hesitantly, kissed Anna on the cheek.

"For heaven's sake John, I'm not Mary Whitehouse, you can kiss her properly."

He did just that, and then he was gone, leaving Anna staring at the closed front door.

Edith pulled on Anthony's coat, "You two are going strong then?"

"Seems that way. I miss him already." She put her head in her hands and groaned, "God, I'm so pathetic."

"Not pathetic. Sappy maybe."

"Are you really having a driving lesson with Anthony?!"

"Yep."

"You two seem to be getting on well." Anna furrowed her nose and laughed, "I'm not sure that'll be the case once the lesson is over, of course."

"That's the brilliance of having Sir Anthony teach me. He's insulted me, yelled at me, disparaged me and mocked me. I very much doubt he could do worse than he's already done whilst teaching me to drive."

"I am in awe of your optimism." With a wave and a smile full of unstated opinions Anna retreated into the bowels of the house.

Outside, the winter sunlight bounced off the neoclassical columns surrounding Locksley's entrance. Raising her face to the heavens Edith enjoyed the warmth on her cheeks. The sky was an astonishing shade of blue, with the occasional puff of white cloud frolicking in the distance.

She blinked rapidly, and the driveway came into focus through the blur of white light.

The first thing she saw was an enormous red truck which looked as though it had driven straight out of Texas or Tennessee, some part of the deep south, in any event; it was far too brash and big for this corner of Yorkshire. A large dent marred the driver's side door and mud spattered in ever-lengthening spots from the wheel arches.

Immediately, she was nervous. Weren't people supposed to learn to drive in little cars? Perhaps a _Fiat 500_? Something pretty and small. At the very most she'd expected a hatchback, an unthreatening vehicle, a _Honda Civic_ maybe, or a _Volvo_.

Once the shock, although not the fear, had worn off, she noticed Anthony. Leaning, slouching almost, against the middle of the truck. He had his foot propped up on the bumper and he twizzled the keys around his index finger. A pastiche of the American cowboy. He didn't have the hat or the boots, but he'd donned double denim - dark jeans with a lighter blue shirt. The shirt was open a button lower than usual, revealing the long line of his neck and the slightest hint of chest. In a concession to the winter chill he'd donned a navy overcoat and robust leather boots. As if to remind the world that he was still _Sir_ Anthony Strallan, Rugby alum, Cambridge graduate and gentleman landowner, a triangle of green handkerchief emerged from the top pocket of the coat.

The light did wonders for him. His skin was luminous, his hair bright and golden and the eyes, they shimmered.

An Adonis.

No one wearing double denim had any right to look so attractive.

He pushed off the car with his foot and walked in her direction. At first he was smiling and her heart started to pound with the idea that she might not have misread him the previous evening. By the time he reached her, however, she was less sure, a familiar frown had settled on his face. Certainly no desire.

Looking down at her feet, he shook his head, "You can't wear those."

Taken aback by the implied criticism of her faithful black ballet shoes, she asked, "Why?" 

"Because I'm the teacher and I said so."

She crossed her arms, "A good teacher explains."

"You were an insufferable student, weren't you?"

"You're about to spend the next few hours finding out precisely what kind of student I am."

"True." He leant on the nearest pillar, "They might slip off your feet, which would be very dangerous. Please change them?"

"As you've asked so very nicely."

Having changed into Anna's walking boots, she was back in front of the giant truck and Anthony was confirming that this was, as she feared, the vehicle she'd be learning in. Sure enough a large L-plate was affixed to the grill at the front.

"I can't drive that."

"No, Miss Crawley, you cannot, I shall teach you."

"That's not what I mean. I don't mean in the sense I can't drive. I mean –" Her voice was slightly frantic, "I can't learn to drive in –" She flapped her arm in the direction of the car trying to demonstrate its enormity, " _that_."

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's an American monstrosity."

"Two things." He raised two fingers, "One: it's a _Toyota_. Two: even if it were an American car, the country of origin of a vehicle should not determine your ability to drive it."

She cuffed his arm, "That's not what I mean and you know it. Sir Anthony, it's massive, like teaching someone to swim in a pool fifty feet deep."

"Nonsense. Get in." He opened the driver's door and his hand waved her towards the interior.

"Can't I just learn in your car?" She whined as she climbed - because it was an almost literal climb - into the driver's seat.

"Of course not, the modifications for my arm make it suitable only for me."

A wave of mortification crept across the back of her neck, she shook her head, "God, yes, I'd forgotten, sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about. This chair will need to come forwards."

There followed a twenty-minute alteration of all the possible elements faced by someone driving a new car for the first time. Driver distance from wheel, seat height, central mirror, left wing, right wing, arm rest height, head rest height and finally angle of the steering wheel relative to knees. Anthony was as thorough and opinionated about these minutiae as he had been about her footwear. A quarter inch here and there made all the difference. Once one was adjusted to perfection another had to be tweaked to match it.

Notwithstanding her nervousness about trying to drive the beast of a vehicle with which he'd presented her, Edith became impatient with this pedantry. Time to get on.

On the fourth adjustment of the headrest, she huffed and snapped, "That's quite enough. Let's just bloody drive."

He stood back from the car and assessed the picture she made, "Put your hands at ten and two again."

Pushing her tongue into her cheek, she considered for a moment playing the part of the petulant toddler and simply refusing, but with a muttered curse she complied. Turning her head, she smiled manically at him, "Happy?"

"Look at the road, please."

"We haven't got anywhere near a bloody road." With a theatrical sigh she looked through the windscreen at Locksley's sweeping driveway curving through an avenue of ash trees and away into the distance.

Soft texture brushed the underside of her wrist. His head was in her lap.

"What are you doing?!" She exclaimed, and took her hands off the wheel. Uselessly, she simply held them aloft, she couldn't put them down because they'd literally be resting on his cheek. She could run them through his hair. Trace the shell of his ear. If she used them to tilt his chin just so, she could lean down and kiss the side of his mouth. Two small triangles of delicate pink flesh where top lip met bottom.

"Hands at ten and two please." He was examining the underside of the wheel, the side of his face pressing into her lap as though he'd put it there to enjoy a mid-morning nap, "There's a handle somewhere down here which will lower the indicators a fraction."

"Oh." She whispered.

Moments later he'd made the adjustment. As he extricated himself, his cheek, followed by the soft strands of his hair traced over her exposed flesh again. A jolt of arousal flashed through her torso and to the location he'd just vacated, unable to stop herself, she murmured, "Jesus."

He smoothed back his hair and cleared his throat, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"Sorry." It was not at all clear what he was sorry for. He went to add something further, tilted his head and looked at his feet. The physical effort of silencing himself was writ large in his body language, she suspected he'd bitten his tongue too.

Instead, he nodded briskly and banged his closed fist on the side of the car, "You're all set."

It turned out Edith was merely 'all set' for thirty minutes of trying to start the car and move it forwards. He explained the concept of a bite point and finding the correct balance between the accelerator and clutch. An easy concept, but difficult in reality. The car would stall entirely or she'd pull forward a few metres before it bounced and stuttered to a stop again. Anthony was maddeningly calm about the whole endeavour, promising she'd get the hang of it eventually.

Finally, she did. They were moving, actually picking up speed down Locksley's sweeping driveway. Anthony said, "I told you so".

Changing gears was not as hard to master as she'd expected. After a couple of hours she was going back and forth, away from the house and back towards it without any issue whatsoever. Anthony decided to unleash her on the open road.

They weaved along a quiet stretch of country lane, a 60mph limit. Edith took that number to heart; there was pride in seeing the red needle pointing squarely at the _60_ and a pleasant sensation zinged up her spine when she slowed down to turn a corner and pressed the accelerator to speed out at the other side.

Anthony's admonishments that "this is not a race", "60mph is the speed limit, not the speed target" and "we are on a country lane in Yorkshire, not the track at Silverstone" really only spurred her on.

Until she came to a sudden realisation and her foot went immediately to the brake pedal.

"Why are you slowing down?"

"You keep telling me to."

"Precisely. You don't care to do the things I tell you to."

"That's not true."

He harrumphed. Edith kept her eyes on the road, but she knew the expression that accompanied the sound; the sanctimonious lift of his eyebrow, the thinning of the lips.

"Alright, it's a little true." She shrugged and stalled, "I just remembered that – well – that you lost your arm in an accident. You're probably nervous being in a car with someone who doesn't know what they're doing."

"I'm not actually. People told me after the accident that I might find it difficult to be in cars, or around cars, or to drive. I never did. The accident had nothing to do with driving. My father held a driver's licence from the age of seventeen and he'd never had so much as a speeding ticket. The car was a fifteen-year-old Land Cruiser, well-built and running like clockwork. He'd driven the route we were taking thousands of times. Ease off on the accelerator." They were approaching a crossroads with double hatch lines, she'd studied her _Highway Code_ at length the night before.

"That's it." They stopped and waited for a space in the traffic. He carried on, "The accident had nothing to do with driving."

"It was a _car_ accident, Sir Anthony."

"No. I broke my Father's heart at a time when he was driving. I blindsided him and so that lorry blindsided us. It was my fault."

The words should have been bitter, or sad, or angry, but, instead of any of those things, they were resigned instead, which was somehow much worse. He blamed himself so completely it had become his ordinary way of thinking. It clouded everything, that much was apparent.

She put her hand on his knee and wondered if she could say something, anything, to convince him that the blame didn't lie at his feet, "There's no fault there, Sir Anthony. Things just _happen_."

Gosh, she was terrible at this. How utterly uninspiring, essentially her advice boiled down to: _shit happens_. Brilliant. Bumper sticker wisdom.

He still hadn't turned to face her, he looked resolutely at the expanse of brown field stretching out beside the road on his side of the car.

Edith ploughed on, hoping for, rather than expecting, to conjure some words of wisdom, "Children and parents fight. They say cruel things and things they wish they could take back. They say them in cars and planes and trains, in bedrooms, kitchens and gardens. The juxtaposition of tragedy and words isn't necessarily causative. You didn't put the lorry there at that moment, or have it catch the car at just the right angle to cause the maximum damage. Even if you had, I cannot believe your Father would want you to carry the burden with you like this. I think you've suffered enough."

An infinitesimal turn of the head and his good hand was covering hers. His words were barely above a whisper, she had to lean and strain to hear, "All he wanted was for me to take some responsibility at Locksley. I was in the City, I thought I had it made - penthouse in Canary Wharf. Six figure bonus, three years in a row. I told him his way of life was dead. That Locksley was dead and that I wouldn't have anything to do with it. I rejected all the hopes he'd ever had for me."

He exhaled a fog of white into the glass and shook his head, "Anyway –" He cleared his throat, "to revert to the original point. No, I'm not afraid to be in the car with you." He added quietly, "I'm afraid of a great many things, but not that."

"I –"

He cut her off. Took his hand away from hers, shifted his knee so that she was forced to release her hold. The cadence of his speech was light, but firm. It said, quite clearly, that the subject was at an end.

"You are rather a speed fiend though; you need to watch that. We're turning right here."


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N Thank you, thank you for all the reviews, they keep me going. Please continue to read and review. Again, I'm sorry for the delays._

Anthony sat, one leg crossed over the other, in one of the library chairs. It was entirely too small for his long, wiry frame, his body wanted to slide right out of the front and down on to the floor. It was necessary to brace himself constantly, as though for an impact.

The driving lessons had continued apace for two weeks, but it was only over the last few days or so that he'd taken to coming to the library to pick Edith up. Charlie would drive him down, in the car which she could drive, despite being a learner, and he, with thirty of driving experience, could not. He was loathed to ask for favours because of his arm, always had been, but asking Charlie for help with this came easier. The indignity of being driven around by his land manager more than subsumed by the pleasure of the lesson and, particularly, the stolen minutes before it started. The time before they got into the car, with stolen conversation and the temporary pretence that his being with her had nothing to do with the lessons. He'd even taken to sprucing himself up.

The Anthony of the City, the Anthony of another life, was a consummate sprucer. Suits were tailor made, overcoats too. He never went anywhere of importance – work, dinner, dates – without a shave and a spritz of cologne. He kept his hair in what his father had called an "effete pomade" tamed back in a lick of perfection with some wax, or other, recommended by his hairstylist. Since the accident there'd been none of that. There was no one to do it for, himself included. It wasn't that he'd stopped caring about how he looked, he simply doubted anyone could see past the arm. Mutton dressed as lamb. Lipstick on a pig.

Now, for Edith, he returned to it, although not with the same panache he once possessed. He showered to wash off a day at the dairy. Through gritted teeth he asked Anna to shave him, a task she hadn't performed in over five years. He brushed his hair, he no longer possessed the products to do anything more than that, but he managed to tame it into to some semblance of order. He put on his best clothes. The suits were long gone, he missed them; the sartorial armour of blended superfine. Instead, he was left with slacks, a plain grey shirt and a brown jacket, the best he had, but that wasn't saying very much.

Typically, or for the last few days at least, Edith didn't finish up in the archive until Mrs Hughes demanded that she do so. Often past closing time. On this particular evening, closing up was taking longer, Mrs Hughes obviously wanted everything spick and span before she left for the weekend.

Anthony's early arrival, combined with Edith's tardiness meant that he'd been sitting on the damned small chair for nearly twenty-five minutes. It should have been a chore, the waiting. But it wasn't. Small chair or no, he liked this time, he was full to the brim with that pleasant warmth of anticipation. All remained possible. It had been an awfully long time since Anthony looked to some future event and expected the best, rather than the worst. Perhaps, finally, all Maud's grousing about positive mental attitude was paying off.

Mrs Hughes bustled around the library. Straightening tables, seemingly seeking millimetre perfection in their placement and fixing wobbles with folded paper and thin slivers of cork. She did a cursory glance of every shelf, tutting when she found something out of place. Every so often she'd pause, open a book and read a few pages before replacing it. How wonderful to come to work every day at a place where one could, at will, slip into thousands of other people's lives and then pull right back out again. Experience their triumphs and flick past their disasters.

She swept behind the counter and in front of it, all the while throwing small, puzzled smiles in his direction. She was probably wondering what he was playing at – a man like him, waiting around for a woman like Edith.

Mrs Hughes put away the brush and started to polish the tables, the sickly sweet tang of the _Pledge_ disseminating into the air, she said, "Edith tells me the lessons are going well."

"Very well, yes. For a beginner, she's picked up on it very quickly. She's rather a natural. She shaves years off my life with her speeding, mind you." 

Stowing her cleaning equipment, Mrs Hughes regarded him with a small smile, "I'm glad it's going well. Anna was worried about the two of you."

"Was she?" Anthony responded in a deadpan voice, Anna would have noticed it, but it passed Mrs Hughes by entirely.

"She said you and Edith didn't get on."

In his mind he went through a card catalogue of possible responses and settled on the dullest, "I suppose that _was_ true."

"But you've made your peace with her now?"

"Yes. I – " Again, the card catalogue. He stopped on some common phrases – _like her_ – _think she's good company_ – _enjoy spending time with her_ \- _love her_. The pause to consider that last response was as brief as it could be, but there was no escaping that it was there, amongst the available options. He knew he'd thought it - he would pretend he hadn't.

He finally finished the sentence, "I think it's proving mutually beneficial arrangement. I can't drive the big car and she can help me transport things around, all the while learning to drive."

In all the lessons they hadn't done even one journey relating to work. The lie slipped out to cover his sudden sense of foolishness, desperate for Mrs Hughes not to see it for what it was: the old letch craving time with the young woman.

"So she's an unpaid farmhand?" Mrs Hughes's lips danced with amusement.

"It's payment in kind – she gets the lessons."

"Ah – of course. What a sensible arrangement, Sir Anthony." She held his gaze a millisecond too long, she carried on, "But there can't be much labouring to do at night?" Her eyes flicked to the window behind him and the black void punctured by Locksley's occasional street light.

Caught out, he played with the crease in his trouser leg, "No, but it's important to get the practice in, some of the farm routes are difficult."

"I see, practice."

Just as the library clock ticked its way insistently to six thirty there was a screech from below. It carried up from the bowels of the archive.

Mrs Hughes clutched her chest, eyes wide, and more Scottish than usual. exclaimed, "My Goodness!"

He was already at the door before she could continue, wrenching it open, the cry of Edith's name poised at the back of his throat, tongue to the roof of his mouth ready to shape it free.

So prepared had he been to dive down the stairs to save her – from what, he'd later think, tumbling papers? Mouldy books? A spider? – he didn't see her coming towards him, not until she had barrelled squarely into the centre of his chest. Squeaking into the cotton of his shirt, her feet bouncing about, fine blonde hairs coming loose from their grips to tickle his chin. Quite involuntarily, his arm came around her. He found his fingers slotted into the soft divots between her ribs, like a pianist about to commence a movement. All except for the tip of his index finger, which brushed at the underside of a breast.

She hugged him back, arms cast naturally around his waist and she squeezed out the vowels of the word and, finally, she looked up at him. She was beaming.

He exhaled his relief, "You scared me!"

"I found it." She whispered, breathless.

"What?"

"The diary. I found the diary."

Seconds had passed, a minute at most, since he was sitting so uncomfortably in the chair. In that time, Anthony had experienced a life's worth of emotion – anticipation, hope, worry, fear, courage, happiness, arousal and now, crashing down after all of them, with the thundering, unwieldy dominance he always knew it to possess - a dominance that said, I will beat out all those feelings and more – despair.

She'd found the diaries. She'd soon be gone.

He tried to make a smile come but it was tentative, then she pulled out of his embrace, flushing, took several steps away and he gave up the effort entirely.

Mrs Hughes said, tentatively, "Edith dear, that's wonderful. I can't believe you found it amongst all that mess down there."

"I know, I mean, I'm probably getting ahead of myself. It's not all of it." She laughed, clutched her hands to her chest, "It's only the first couple. She's maybe ten or eleven. Although she has remarkable handwriting, almost copperplate, she must have been at school. And she fills up every page from the absolute top to the absolute bottom, every one looks as though it's bursting. I just – if the first two are there –" She pressed a closed fist to her mouth, "then I think the rest of them must be down there as well. It was worth coming here." She sobered, "Sorry – sorry, I'm overexcited. It's been an adventure coming to Locksley and so nice to - " She looked at him – at Mrs Hughes – at him, "It's just a relief to know it wasn't all a wild goose chase. Let me get my things from downstairs and we can go."

He was leaning next to the door of the archive. He couldn't not lean; his legs had bowed with the relief. Not all of them. There was time. Time for what, he hardly knew.

To his surprise Charlie was still waiting outside by the Toyota. He called out to him across the car park, "I told you, Ms Crawley is driving me."

"Did you?" 

"Charlie you know you were driving me here for a lesson."

He answered, but his interest in the conversation was gone, he was looking over Anthony's shoulder, "Oh, I didn't realise that. Elsie!"

Mrs Hughes looked at him and looked away, calling out for Edith, who bounded out of the library with the same youthful enthusiasm she'd had earlier. It was clear she'd tried to apply a lid to it but been entirely unsuccessful.

"I'm happy for you." He said to her, confident it was true.

"Thank you. I'm happy for me too. For my dissertation, for my career." She joked, but they both knew it was serious.

"Let's celebrate."

"Is this where you tell me Locksley has a hidden three star Michelin restaurant?"

He laughed and shook his head, "God, you're not a cheap –" He caught the word 'date' and shoved it back down, "night out. I was thinking the pub, although you can't have an alcoholic drink."

"What an appealing offer." She crooked her head towards the Wilberforce, "Let's go then."

He called out to Elsie and Charlie and invited them along. Charlie proclaimed it an "excellent idea" and tucked his arm around his wife's waist. She scowled.

Anthony positively floated along the footpath, all broad grins and warm limbs; utterly incandescent, surely he must be lighting the way as he went. A man at his time of life should never skip, but he wanted to, he wanted to skip right up to Edith and capture her hand within his, bring her fingers to his lips for a kiss.

He paused at the door to the pub, waiting for Charlie and Mrs Hughes to catch up, they lagged behind, deep in hushed conversation.

"Hurry up you two. It's a big day for Edith, and the drinks are on me."

After taking their sullen requests, he led the way into the dank surrounds of the Wilberforce. He stopped short inside the door. At the bar, only metres away from him, Edith stood, deep in cheerful conversation with Barrow. The bartender smiled at her. And it wasn't a sarcastic smile, his usual pretence of warmth, baring all his teeth like a wolf. This was quite genuine, neat and attractive. The man had chiselled cheek bones and he was deploying them for all they were worth at Edith.

Then, he pressed his two hands to the bar, pushed himself up, and kissed her on the mouth.

Anthony felt it like a punch in his.

Really, it can only have been two beats of contact – _one_ – _two_ , but it was an eternity.

Finally, Thomas dropped back onto his feet and Edith giggled.

Turning to him, as if nothing extraordinary had happened, she said, "I'll grab the booth in the corner. Mine's an elderflower and lemonade."

Slowly, he approached the bar. All the warmth Thomas had given to Edith disappeared from his face. He frowned at Anthony and ran his tongue threateningly over his top teeth.

"So you're teaching my Edith to drive."

 _My_ Edith.

Anthony felt a ridiculous sense of possession and couldn't stop himself from snapping back, "She's not _yours_."

Although, maybe she was. Thomas was a young man, handsome, in a dark, brooding, vampiric sort of way. It was entirely possible he and Edith had struck up a relationship. A wave of nausea overset him and he gripped the bar to maintain his balance as the floor of the pub waxed and waned beneath his feet.

Pouring the last of the pints, Thomas held out the palm of his hand, "She's not yours either. That'll be £11."

He gave him £20 with slightly shaking fingers and waited for the change. Thomas put it on the bar and leaned forward on both elbows to carry on reading his book.

Anthony cleared his throat, "Are you and she –" The sentence never did get finished, it just drifted into the air, an inquisitive, ever-lengthening _eee_ which, eventually, trailed off into silence.

Thomas arched an eyebrow. Shook his head. Smirked. And winked. Then he closed his book, tucked it away besides the till and went to clear some tables, whistling as he did so. All of which left Anthony absolutely no clearer on the status of Thomas's relationship, or lack thereof, with Edith. He was embarrassed that he even asked the question. What she did with her spare time and who she spent it with were absolutely not his concern.

"Need help?" She breezed to his side, wavy blonde hair, peachy cheeks and wafts of lavender.

He grunted a non-verbal response, picked up his pint and pushed past her.

The four of them sat around the small table, a quartet of silence, with the occasional slurp of beer or sip of cider. He prayed Mrs Hughes and Carson would chip in soon, he was in no fit state to try and carry a conversation. His eyes kept drifting back to Thomas, absorbed in his book, leaning so nonchalantly, as though he'd won the world and didn't care.

Edith cleared her throat, "How was your meeting with Bates today Sir Anthony?"

"Fine."

Monosyllabic was all he could manage. He was afraid if he tried for more words the ones he could not stop thinking might slosh out alongside them.

 _Fine. Just how many people are you sleeping with?_

It was none of his concern. She was young and beautiful and free and she could sleep with whoever she wanted. He knew the truth of that, but it didn't change that he was angry and growing angrier still. He was flotsam in her tide, thrown this way and that, hopeless and powerless.

"He was happy with the window specifications?"

"Yes."

 _Yes. Please sleep only with me._

With determined resolution, he stared at the grain in the table. He would not look at her. He could not. It was too much, she was too much and he couldn't have her.

She gave up, retreated back to her drink. Glancing at Charlie he tried to ask him with his eyes to please say something. But his land manager was grimacing into his half drunk pint, shoulders rounded.

"So –" He managed the start of a sentence, and to his relief, finished it, "do you two have any plans for the weekend?"

Charlie turned his head slowly away from his pint to look at his wife. He stared at the side of her unmoving head for several seconds and then said sharply, "I don't know. Do we have any plans, love? We could go away for the weekend, or potter about our garden, perhaps go for a Sunday lunch? We could do any number of things married couples usually do at the weekend, if you'd like to."

"Charlie."

"The weekend away, my love, I wasn't joking. We could take a drive up to Hexford, or Edinburgh, or Glasgow, if you wanted to return to some old haunts."

"Charles!" She banged her pint glass on the table.

Shocked, Anthony looked from Mrs Hughes to Edith to Charlie, "What –"

"Sir Anthony –"

"Elsie." Charlie interrupted his wife, voice low and urging.

"You started this Charles. You didn't want to tell anyone and then you behave this way. You cannot embarrass me back into this marriage. You cannot dictate me there either. Sir Anthony, Charles and I have separated. Thank you for the drink."

With that, she was urging Edith out of the booth to give her the space to exit and walking quickly out of the pub.

"What the devil is going on here Charlie?"

But he was shuffling around the bench too and giving chase to his wife, "I can't – I have to – Elsie! Elsie!"

Anthony stood and watched them go, hand on hip. He turned and found Edith sitting back down, sipping her drink as though nothing had happened. He barked at her, "What the hell was that about?!"

"Don't shout, please." She shrugged, "They've split up."

"You knew."

"Mrs Hughes told me."

"How is that possible? They've been married less than a year, and they were so in love."

"Love is all well and good, Sir Anthony, but relationships are difficult. Sometimes too difficult. That's the way its been for them."

It was petulant to be annoyed with that opinion, which Anthony knew from experience to be absolutely true. But he was annoyed, and still angry. The ease with which she expressed it, the knowledge she'd acquired. Bosom buddies with Mrs Hughes, sleeping with Thomas; she'd made herself at home in Locksley. He saw Charlie every day and he hadn't said a word. More than that, he'd lied - acted and spoke as though he was going home every night to a happy wife. He swallowed the dregs of his now-warm pint and considered her across the table. She appeared so comfortable, leaning back, pale skin gleaming against the black leather, tongue darting out to catch an errant drop of elderflower.

He couldn't help the spite in his tone, "You don't know them. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Right." She pushed her hair away from her face, "Shall we go?"


	17. Chapter 17

Overnight, a storm lashed across Yorkshire. High winds and inches of rain, pounding from the sky. Edith lay in bed, only half asleep, listening to the rattling of the sashes and the screaming of the glass against the assault. The trees along the drive and in the copse behind the house whistled, bowing and bending. Nature's nightmarish orchestra.

Locksley was suddenly inhospitable again, but it wasn't just the storm, it was Anthony.

For two weeks they'd enjoyed one another's company. Daily driving lessons often followed by chess or tea, sometimes a gin and tonic. One night he'd admitted that, yes, Locksley does have a television and she made him take her to it, hidden, as it was, in a tiny room off the library called 'the snug'. The cathode ray warmed slightly and then popped into dull, allegedly technicolour life. They watched _Location, Location, Location_ on a slightly fuzzy Channel Four and Edith was glad of the opportunity to be mindless for an hour or so. Anthony was not so mindless, wading into some great diatribe about the economics of the housing market and the impact of Kirstie and Phil on the state of the British housing. The words filtered across her brain but she ignored the content in favour of being soothed by his voice. They argued from time to time, but it was in fun, or in genuine disagreement. There was mutual respect between them. He wasn't nasty.

Until, yet again, he was.

At the pub he'd looked at her with thinly veiled contempt and declared "you don't know what you're talking about." She'd driven them home in silence and when they arrived, he got out of the car and disappeared into the house without a word.

The storm battered away at Locksley and Anthony did the same to her.

When they were seeing one another, Michael Gregson called Edith interesting and pretty but also boring, weak and insipid. Instead of recognising that his finding her, to any degree, boring, weak and insipid (none of which, she knew – or hoped, in her less confident moments – were true) should signal the end of the relationship, she focused instead on being interesting and pretty; hoping he might forget about the rest. She'd been told on countless occasions by boyfriend after boyfriend, by her Mother, by her Father, by Sybil, by Mary - be a little less that, or a little more this.

Pushed from pillar to post by people's opinions, she tried to shape herself to a set of impossible expectations. It was fatiguing to be, even partly, someone you were not. Trying to satisfy everyone else meant she never satisfied herself. And she'd decided, when Michael Greyson declared her work to be 'hopelessly derivative' that she was finished trying to be all things to all people, a hopeless derivative of everyone else's expectations. She would be herself.

Anthony Strallen wasn't asking her to change, not explicitly, but all her instincts screamed: become the woman he likes. She'd nearly run after him last night and apologized, even though she'd done nothing wrong. She wanted to placate and be some version of Edith he wouldn't be angry with; to discover what she might say or do to make it right between them.

With his beauty and his voice and his intriguing personality, he was very close to pushing her off the course she'd set upon.

She wouldn't let him do that, she couldn't. He wasn't worth it. No one was.

Edith didn't have a complete sense of who she was, or who she might become. She was a mass of contradictions and imperfections. She was a good person who sometimes did or said bad things. She was pedantic about her tea and self-critical to the point of annihilation about her work. There wasn't a cookery programme she wouldn't watch, but she couldn't make past the first chapter of Delia's ' _How To Cook_ '. She thought Charles Dickens was a hack and she adored Michael Crichton. Given the choice she'd rather watch people than be amongst them.

There was nothing wrong with any part of that, with any part of her, or so she'd decided.

And if Anthony Strallan couldn't see that, and apparently he couldn't, then sod him.

She rolled over onto her side and the sharp red lines of the alarm clock announced it as 02:03. They had another lesson at 9am. She suspected it would be their last.

There was a sharp knock just before 9am. Edith was halfway through putting on her second pair of socks, she walked over to the door, one bare foot, one covered.

Anthony stood on the other side and thrust a pair of wellingtons at her, "You'll need these." She took them and he stalked off into the gloom of the hall.

"Good morning to you too!" She shouted at his receding figure. She'd hoped, rather than expected, he would have thawed overnight.

On the driveway, Anthony was loading large flat stones into the back of the car, carrying three of four of them at a time, cradled in the crook of his arm like a baby. His right arm swung uselessly at his side.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"We have to take these up to the North field."

"I see." The back of the car was filled with stones, she wondered if he'd put them all there, it must have taken him an hour at least, "So I'm working for you today?"

He shut the back hatch of the car, "Contrary to what you might think Miss Crawley, I do not spend my days teaching you to drive or waiting to teach you to drive. There are things to be done around here, and this is one of them. If you want a lesson, you'll have to help." His tone was brusk and impersonal. He delivered the whole speech without looking at her. He pressed the keys into her hand and pulled away so quickly she almost dropped them.

They drove in complete silence, Anthony staring sullenly out of the window.

The quiet was oppressive, vibrating with his anger and her irritation, desperately, she snapped out the first question that came to mind, "Why don't you wear your arm in a sling?" Slowly, his head turned and came to look at her. She regretted the topic, but ploughed on, "I would think it would be more comfortable."

"Do you?"

"Without it, it sort of swings and –" She took a deep breath, if she was trying to converse them back to a place of mutual agreement, this was not the right way to go about it, "If would just be more secure, you could put it up, over your heart." She showed him what she meant.

"Both hands on the wheel."

"Sorry." She could feel him staring at the side of her head, and again, she was compelled to speak, "I was just making a suggestion."

He took a deep breath and his voice, when it finally emerged, was low and cold, "I don't need your suggestions. I need you to drive me to the north field."

They turned a corner and were faced with a muddy, uphill track, "Stop here please."

Anthony got out of the car and walked a few metres in front of the car, pushing his feet into the ground, hand on hip. He shook his head and walked back, "We'll have to turn around."

"Why?"

"The rain has run down the road overnight and made it too muddy."

"This i 4."

"Yes. One you haven't even been driving a month."

"Sir Anthony, I've driven on muddy tracks before."

He rubbed his forehead, "I am aware of that, but none like this. There will be concealed rocks and God only knows what beneath the surface of the mud. You won't be able to drive this car up that track." He jabbed a finger at the car and at the track, as if she was too idiotic to know what he meant.

Something flared inside her then, hot and angry and a little irrational.

"You know –" She pulled the handbrake up and off, "I've never met any man so set on telling me what I can –" She manipulated the gearstick into first, "and cannot do." Inch by inch, she started up the track.

"Ms Crawley! Stop!"

"No. You want me to take you to the north field and that's damn well what's going to happen."

The suspension worked overdrive to keep them from being thrust out of their seats. They jerked in every direction, one moment the bonnet was dipped towards the sky, the next it pointed to the ground.

"Jesus, stop! You have no idea what's underneath the mud! You'll bank the bloody car on a rock at this rate."

"It's fine." She replied through gritted teeth, very much hoping she was right.

He braced himself on the dash, the car stopped, the engine revved and they staggered forwards again.

"Gently, for Christ's sake!"

They were nearly at the top now. The car continued to lurch and to keen, the engine protested and the wheels squeaked, but she was going to make it.

When they reached the summit she was going to get out and hurl the keys straight at his stupid head and tell him precisely where to shove his stupid lessons. She didn't want them, not from him. There was no space in her heart or her head for a man who treated her like summer one minute and winter the next.

The crest was up ahead, she depressed the accelerator a little more. The elation of impending victory swept over her, only a little bit further.

They came to a juddering halt. She pressed the accelerator. The engine roared, but there was no movement. She tried again, putting her foot right down. Still nothing. She glanced at the wing mirror and her stomach dropped through to her feet. The back wheels were spinning uselessly, inches above the ground.

"I told you! I told you you couldn't do it. I warned you about the rocks. I warned you that you'd bank the bloody car! You've probably bust the chassis or the fuel tank. I _told you_ not to try it!" The words emerged in a long holler of a sentence, his face was enflamed and, for good measure, as if it wasn't obvious enough how angry he was, he smacked his hand on the dash, "I told you not to try it! You're the single most infuriating person I have ever met. I -"

Climbing out of the driver's seat Edith slammed the door with all the strength she could muster. Never before had she wanted to hit someone, or something, anything at all. She curled her hand into a fist.

In the absence of the opportunity to pursue physical violence, she lay flat on the dirt road, and looked underneath the car. Moisture seeped onto the front of her coat.

"What are you doing?!" His voice shouted into the space above and behind her.

"I'm seeing if I've broken anything." In truth the underside of the car was a maze of mud and metal, if everything had been in entirely the wrong place she couldn't have worked it out. A lecture on the female participation in late nineteenth century education boards she could manage, but engineering? Not so much.

He scoffed and called her out, "A mechanic now, are you? And, even if you can work out what's broken from what's not – which, I seriously doubt - then what? Are you going to get out your tool kit and repair it? We're banked on a rock Ms Crawley, we'll need to get one of the tractors up here to pull us off."

Pushing herself up, she rounded on him, "And what are you doing? _Nothing_. You're standing there moaning and complaining and shouting at me. You've been foul all morning. It's like being with a petulant teenager." Kicking a loose rock, she watched it skitter away into the overgrown grass and took a deep breath, "I think perhaps these lessons should stop. You obviously don't want to be teaching me and I definitely don't want to be taught by you." She turned to face him and shrugged, "Not if it's going to be like this."

His nostrils flared. Sometimes she forgot just how tall he was, how broad. His figure blocked out the sun and he seemed to bear down on her. He demanded, "Who is Tom?"

The swerve in conversation took place entirely too quickly for her brain. Dumbly, she stared at him. A couple of thoughts went through her mind. The most prominent of which was: _Tom Thumb_? Followed swiftly by _Tom and Jerry?_ and _Goodnight Mister?_ At that moment she couldn't locate the existence of a Tom in her life, save for the fictional portrayals uselessly storing up precious space in the back of her brain.

"I'm sorry?!" She asked in a daze, eyebrows creased deeply into her nose.

"Tom." He said, as if it was obvious. He took a step closer to her, hand curled into a fist at his side, "Tom, who you love."

"Tom, who I _what_?!" Her eyes were saucers, she was utterly baffled, "Tom, who I _"

Slowly it dawned on her, although she couldn't understand how he knew about Tom, "Tom _Branson_?" She said the next words slowly, pointedly, "My sister Sybil's husband? Who I've known since I was twelve years old and who, yes, I do love?"

A little of the anger drained from his face, replaced with a suitable measure of embarrassment, "Right."

"Right."

"And Thomas?" Presumably her fresh bout of utter confusion was writ large on her face as he clarified, "Barrow. Are you and he?" He nodded, lips thinned, "Are you and he, seeing – doing – or – are you and he a couple?"

"Thomas Barrow? From the pub?!"

"Yes."

Now it was her turn to be angry, infuriated, _enraged_ that he had the audacity to ask her these things. To what end did he ask these questions? He said he wasn't interested in her. He treated her like a friend and then turned on a dime at the drop of a hat to treat her like an enemy. She was quite finished playing these games; catering to his mood swings.

"Two things." She raised the appropriate number of fingers and schooled her voice into a deadly, icy calm she'd learnt from Mary and could nearly do half as well, "First, Thomas Barrow is gay. Very, very gay. Elton John gay – George Michael gay – Stephen Fry gay. Second, even if I was dating him, even if I was shagging him senseless over the bar at the _Wilberforce_ , even if I'd agreed to be the female third in his polyamorous male-male relationship – it would be _none_ of your business."

When had he gotten so close to her? The rise and fall of his chest was inches away from hers. The thin spindle shadows from his eyebrows leapt from his face and onto her own.

Silence pressed around them, the sheer emptiness of the space, closing, pushing them together. It was as if they were the only two people left on the planet, she wanted them to be, she wanted him like he was the only man left on earth, because for her, he might as well have been.

"Barrow is gay?"

"Very."

"You kissed him." He said.

"He kissed me." She replied.

"There was a kiss."

"There was a kiss between you and I as well. But I recall you saying it was a mistake. That you weren't –" She raised her hands, to draw quotation marks around the words she'd memorised and couldn't forget, "remotely interested in me that way." She shrugged, "So you see, sometimes a kiss isn't what it seems."

He leant in, closer still, "It was."

"What?" She said, sharply, and immediately regretted it, his eyes squeezed shut.

"Our kiss." They opened, and he stared straight at her, "It was _exactly_ what it seemed." Her heartbeat kicked and she held her breath. The next words emerged gnarled and grisly, as though he had to push them up his throat past a blockage of rocks, "Edith, " he pleaded, "Please tell me, are you seeing anyone?"

She whispered her response, afraid pitching her voice any louder might scare the moment away, extinguish the small flame of hope which flicked to life with his question, "No."

And with that - he pressed her back against the cool metal of the car and kissed her.


	18. Chapter 18

_A/N Thank you so much for the reviews, I really appreciate it. I am very sorry to leave you here, but I am off on my hols for three weeks and will be leaving my laptop and easily accessible internet behind, so, no more updates until June time._

 _M rated for language._

There was a delicious urgency to the kiss, as though he'd wanted to do it, even since before the last time - for months, years, the whole of his life - and poured forth all his pent up lust into the effort. If Edith's mouth hadn't been occupied with an infinitely superior activity she'd have gloated – _I knew you liked me!_ He was certainly interested in her and there was nothing, at all, remote about it.

His hand went into her hair, coaxed an arch out of her neck. His leg pressed between hers and she moaned at the friction and the evidence of his arousal.

Their tongues met and explored. His hand became impatient with the simple act of cradling her head. It skirted down the length of her body, making a vain attempt to trace her curves through the thick coat. She wondered if he regretted gifting it to her, it formed such a formidable barrier between them. He pulled up the fabric with an impatient huff, found her jumper underneath and her t-shirt beneath that, finally locating what he sought: the bare skin of her back. If his fingers didn't leave four red ovals in their wake she'd be surprised, so tightly did he pull her against him.

All the while they kissed and kissed as if afraid of the consequences should they let up for even a moment. Arousal vibrated through her body. It was elemental, as raw as the wind shaping its way around the car and pressing past the skin of her cheek and into the tangle of her hair. Just as wild, too. Urgent and unstoppable.

She pressed tighter to him, trying for some friction to ease the desire, or to worsen it, she hardly knew. She knew only that she wanted, needed, _something_. Quite inadvertently she pushed her lower half into his erection and he gasped into her mouth and pulled away.

There was a moment when Edith thought she'd ruined it all. In her attempt to take more than was offered, she'd scared him off. Everything between them would culminate here, on top of a muddy hill, with that blistering kiss, rather than between pristine white sheets, with blistering sex.

Relief coursed through her when he remained in the embrace, his hand flat on her back, fingers brushing a gentle caress. Their foreheads rested on one another. For moments the only sound was the wind shushing through the long grass.

She stole a glance up at his face, it was a map of furrows. Eyes shut, crows' feet creasing at the edges. Eyebrows sliced downwards, such pain there. Her stomach dropped. She reached up and traced his jaw with her fingers and brushed a thumb across the angry divots in his forehead, tried gently to smooth them away. This was not a moment for worry, he must know - this was a moment for joy.

Suddenly, Anthony turned his head and pressed a full kiss into the palm of her hand.

"Sorry." He said abruptly, "We should go back to the house."

And with that he was marching away, almost a quarter of the way down the track before she had a chance to process that he'd gone. The ghost of his hand on her back still lingered.

"Sir Anthony!" She called, "Sir Anthony!" She was chasing him, and she hated herself a little bit for it, stumbling and scraping to catch up. She'd punch him when she got there. Straight in the nose. Infuriating bloody man, "For goodness sake, slow down!"

"That was a mistake."

"It didn't feel like a mistake."

"Well, it was."

"Why?"

He cast a frustrated glance down at her, "Miss Crawley."

"Not good enough. You can't just say my name in that tone, as if the answer is so self-evident as to not require articulation. I require articulation. Why was it a mistake, Anthony?"

"Bloody academics." He muttered underneath his breath.

They stomped, or smushed, through the mud towards the house. He widened his stride to its full span, although he was sorely mistaken if he thought he could outpace her. She kept up. There was no earthly way she was letting him run away, not this time. They crossed the brow of the field and pushed their way through gaps in the hedgerow separating Locksley's maintained gardens from the surrounding farm.

"Thought of an answer yet?"

"This isn't a courtroom, I've no obligation to answer."

If only it were, she'd love to put him under oath and have some two-brained, eagle-eyed silk cross-examine the living daylights out of him: _You're attracted to Ms Crawley, aren't you?_

"You're not answering because you can't."

The corner of his lips twitched, but they remained pinched together in an emotionless line, he shook his head. She stared, willing him to speak the truth. No kiss that good, that passionate, could be a mistake.

"Fine. I'll start then." She took a breath before she continued, they'd reached the side door of the house and she followed him into the boot room, "You've kissed me – twice now – so I assume you don't find me completely repulsive."

He glanced at her and shook his head slowly, "No, quite the opposite in fact."

"Well there you are then."

He sat down on the bench, "forgive me, I don't follow, where, precisely, am I?"

"You're attracted to me. I'm attracted to you. The kiss was not a mistake."

 _God_. He was going to make her say it. To spell it out. There should be more kisses. More rows and debates, followed by kisses. There should be hotly contested chess matches, interspersed with kisses. And then, there should be _sex_. Lots and lots and lots of sex. In all different positions.

There should be, well: _them_.

She huffed her frustration, it echoed around the washed walls and bounced off the stone floors, "Look, I'm not here on a boyfriend hunt – "

"Well that's lucky, because I am the most inappropriate candidate imaginable for that office –"

"Shut up and stop interrupting me." She snapped. He raised his hands and ran a mock finger across his lips, zipping them. She continued, "I'm not here forever, but I am here for a while, working in the archive, and you – are here too."

"I live here."

"Shush! And you – you –" She toed off the heel of her welly and proceeded to yank in an ungainly fashion at the bottom, it seemed to be welded to her foot. It finally gave and she staggered backwards.

"You! –" She thrust the welly out at him, accusing, "are an insufferable, moody, sullen, know-it-all, but –" She cleared her throat and started work on her other foot, an excuse not to look at him as she said the words, "I like you. And you kiss exceedingly well and I should like to find out if you do other things exceedingly well, as well. As well as the kissing, that is."

The word 'well' appeared four times in that sentence. Mentally she re-wrote. Took out the red pen and cast out whole swathes of it. It was too late to save it though. The whole thing had been an inarticulate mess, but, for better or worse, it was, at least, articulated.

Sybil would've just asked him straight out.

And Mary? Mary would've been mean to him for five straight hours and then cocked an eyebrow at him when she went up to bed and he'd probably follow like a horny puppy dog.

Propositioning a man for sex should not be this difficult.

She risked a look up.

The blue eyes were wide. He cleared his throat, but the words still emerged in a whisper, "That's nice of you to say. The liking bit – and the kissing bit, not the sullen, know-it-all bit." He shook his head, scratching heavy red lines into his cheek, "Miss Crawley, I'm twice your age."

"I'm aware of that."

"And I'm –" He set to work on his walking boots, "I'm a cripple."

"I hate that term. It shouldn't even be in your vocabulary. Like retard or coloured. It's an awful, awful word."

"I am sorry if my political incorrectness bothers you. I'll rephrase, shall I? I'm disabled, impaired, physically challenged." He put his boots on the side next to hers, an aggravating expression of determined self-pity on his face.

"So your arm doesn't work, so what?" She stepped away from him and made a deliberate decision to say the words before they came out of her mouth, "I assume your cock is still functional?"

They had the desired affect. He covered his mouth, muffled a response through his fingers, "you – I." He cleared his throat, moved his hand away. His cheeks had gone a little pink.

"I asked if your cock still works." She knew, of course, that it did, because she'd felt it earlier.

His mouth was gaping, but she wouldn't stop now.

"Oh, I'm sorry, does my political incorrectness bother you? I'll rephrase, shall I?" She was in full flow, barking the words out, "Does your penis work? Your member? Rod? Shaft? Velvet covered steel sex piston?"

She was shouting. It was, for a fleeting moment, a triumph. He stood before her, shocked into silence and she controlled the conversation. She'd done it. She'd propositioned this aggravating, attractive man for sex. She was eight feet tall. An Amazon.

Except that, with all the shouting and the propositioning and the growing to the dimensions of some sort of superwoman, she'd missed the snick of the boot room door, the footsteps on the flagstones.

Slowly, with one eye shut, she turned around. A woman stood looking at them, an expression of thinly veiled amusement on her face.

"Hello." She spoke brightly, eyes darting from Anthony to Edith and back again.

Edith looked away and clamped her eyes shut. She shook her hands, hoping to dissolve, organs into cells, cells into molecules and then just dust drifting amidst a shaft of light.

Anthony spoke with an infuriating level of calm, "Maud, how good to see you, can you give us a moment?"

"Certainly, I'll be in the study."

The door shut. Edith commenced pacing, the mortification spread through her limbs, "Oh God. _Oh God_." She looked at Anthony, "Oh God! _OhGodOhGodOhGod_. She heard me say – Oh. _God_."

Then there was the realisation – the words played back – it wasn't just the woman, Anthony had been there too. She'd said those words to him. Cock. Penis, too. She had actually _said them_. There could be no mistaking her intentions.

"Edith –" He interjected, but it was in vain.

"Oh God! I am just – I am so utterly embarrassed. I cannot believe - _OhGodOhGodOhGod_ – Who was that?!"

"My ex-wife."

"Oh _God_." She sunk down on to the bench. The words filtered in to her brain and the question skipped out, "you were married?"

"Yes. For about five minutes when I was twenty-five."

"You divorced?"

"As is the custom in order to add the prefix ex- to the word wife." She scowled at him. This was not the time for sarcasm. He sat next to her, "Sorry. Yes. We divorced. Maud was a brilliant wife, except for her discovery, whilst married to me, that she is, in fact, a lesbian."

"Oh."

She didn't know what else to say. She'd learnt to hold a knife and fork at school, to curtsy, to mind her _Ps_ and _Qs_. To send invites and thank you cards. Always to RSVP. But there was no lesson on the appropriate response to someone telling you their marriage had failed because their wife turned out to be homosexual.

"Indeed." He bumped her shoulder, "Obviously she wasn't convinced by my velvet covered steel sex piston."

She put her head in her hands, "Oh _God_."

"Edith?"

"Yes?" She wished he'd go away and let her die quietly of embarrassment.

"You don't –" He drummed his fingers on the doorframe. She raised her head, arched a brow, "you really want to –" He pushed the toe of his foot over the flagstone floor, traced the space around a tile, "– you know – with me?"

She was already as embarrassed as it was humanly possible to be, so she decided to avail herself of the opportunity to speak plainly, "Yes. And just so we're absolutely and entirely clear about what I mean: I would like to have sex with you, Sir Anthony Strallan."

He nodded, "Right." And then he left.


	19. Chapter 19

_A/N Thank you so, so, so much for the reviews. As ever, I am very, very grateful._

Maud sat behind his desk, feet up, half glasses perched on the end of her nose, she was examining a bundle of his papers. Her eyes flicked to him as he entered, "your total in the second column is wrong."

"That desk is nearly two hundred years old." He pushed at her ankles, "feet, please."

Fifteen women matriculated at Christ's College in 1978. All were conspicuous amongst one of the foremost bastions of traditional masculinity in the Western world, but none more so than Maud Taverner. Maud wasn't a woman trying to infiltrate the faculty of history, or English, or modern languages, where one might conceive that a woman, given sufficient time, could match a man, instead, she'd come up to study economics. Weathering all the derision, the sexism, the griping and the sniping, she achieved the top first in her year. Anthony loved her brilliance and her resolve, and decided very early on that she was the woman for him. That decision, once made, was impossible to renege on, anything less than her announcement one sleepy September afternoon that she was cheating on him, with a woman, probably wouldn't have done it.

With a flourish she extricated herself from what was rightly his seat and took the chair at the other side of the desk. He looked down at the papers, "I was rounding."

"Liar."

He grunted and crossed out the calculation.

"£657.83." She said.

"I know, I know."

Returning the accounts to their proper location, he feigned normalcy, hoping beyond hope that this might be their usual Saturday business meeting. Perhaps she could forget what she'd heard.

"So, Bates has found a glass manufacturer who can do us a triple glaze with a crystal finish for 15% less than the last quote. We went to see it in the factory last week and it's very good and will come in large panes so the view over the gardens should be largely undisturbed by the mullions. It'll make the guests feel as though they're eating and celebrating outside, even if there's three feet of snow. I know it's more than you suggested we should be paying, but it's a vastly superior product and it'll last longer. So, we spend a bit more now, save a lot more later. I put in a provisional order."

She picked some lint from her blouse and ignored everything he'd said, "She's beautiful."

"Who?" Although, of course, he knew who she meant.

"Maria Von Trapp. That is her, isn't it? The spinning one from the field?" She smiled, displaying her slightly buck teeth to fine effect, "Anyway, your Maria, she's beautiful."

"Can't we please discuss the hotel?"

Maud tilted her head, "not at this moment, no."

"I don't want to talk about -"

"Anthony, are you hoping to play the Captain?" She smirked.

"Oh, ha bloody ha! Edith is her name - Miss Crawley, actually. She's not mine. And I don't want to talk about her. Or the Captain."

"Good God, would this make me some perverse version of the Baroness?"

"Maud!" He laughed her name, half in humour, half in despair.

Serious now, she stood and wandered to the fireplace, brushing her finger through the dust on its surface, "When did we stop talking about things?"

"Maud, we talk all the time - phone - text - email."

Examining the base of a piece of China older than both of them combined, she said, "yes, but not liked we used to."

"We were married then."

"No, after the divorce as well, we would talk - properly -" she jerked the figurine at him, emphasising the word, "about our feelings, our fears, our lovers."

"You make us sound like hippies."

"We were friends, proper friends. We shared parts of ourselves. Why did we stop doing that?"

It was true. When they were married, and before, they shared everything, no typical British restraint between them. After the separation and the speedy divorce, he'd been angry and embarrassed. There was a fissure in his masculinity and he was incandescent with her for causing it, convinced that his inability to stop her from turning her back on - not just him - but _all_ men was a damning indictment going to the heart of his very character. It was surely the worst possible thing that could happen to a man, he slated her to anyone who would listen. How awful he'd been, and he realised it just over a year after the divorce when the fates deigned to sit Maud next to him on a flight to New York. All the irrational anger, all the venom, was left behind them on the runway. They talked as everyone else slept. She was his best friend, and he'd missed her.

The accident changed him, and Libby changed her. They weren't those people any more.

"You know why."

Her laugh was rueful, punctuated by slamming the figurine back to its starting location, "I do, but I don't like it, and it's not good for us."

After throwing half a barrel of coal on the fire, she went to the drinks carriage and poured them both a generous measure of Scotch. The amber liquid caught in the light as she handed it across the desk, "don't you miss being those versions of ourselves?"

Did he miss being young and whole?

"Yes."

"Good. Let's try again then."

"Maud." The tone of his voice betrayed his wariness. The very idea of sharing truths made him tired to the centre of his bones and they hadn't even begun.

"Please?"

It was so rare that she asked him for something, perhaps she needed to be rid of the superficial as much as he hoped to retain it. He nodded, and took a fortifying glug of his liquor.

"Good." She raised her eyebrows and nodded at him, "Go on then."

"Why do I have to start?" He whined.

"Because our choices are between sex and death, and sex is more interesting."

Hard to argue with that logic, although, "There's been no sex."

Just the startling, extraordinary discussion of it, and, for his part, many, many thoughts of it. Come to think of it, given what Edith had said, perhaps on her part as well.

"I gathered that much, given that your young woman was asking if your cock worked."

Anthony swallowed the rest of his drink and went to pour himself another, "I cannot believe we're talking about this. And, _again_ , she's not mine."

"You've kissed her."

"I –" He shook his head, "Yes."

"And?"

"And what?"

"How was it?"

If the expression on his face conveyed anything less than complete horror at the conversation Anthony would have been surprised. Maud's expression, however, was filled with amusement and interest, so, for her sake he tried to find some way of answering the question, "The first one –"

"More than one?!"

"Yes, is that so hard to believe?"

"Well –"

He raised his hand, "Don't answer that, no good can come of it. Yes, more than one. The first kiss was lovely. And the second was –"

Everything. Passionate. Arousing. Erotic. Consuming.

"Lovelier." He shrugged and cleared his throat.

"So there's going to be sex."

He traced his finger around the surface of the liquid, "I - I'm - probably not, I wouldn't think, no. I - it's -" He sighed, exhausted by his desire and his indecisiveness, "probably not."

The sound of crystal connecting with wood caused him to turn, just in time to see Maud upend her chair and take three steps towards him before punching him in the soft flesh just above his elbow.

"Ow! Christ, woman! That's my good arm!"

"I know! What do you mean 'probably not'?! You utter imbecile." She righted the chair, "your cock does work?"

"Jesus. Are there to be no boundaries? Yes, yes it works." The body attached to it, however - the man - he was less sure about that.

"And she's only here temporarily."

"So?!"

"She's half my age."

Maud blinked furiously, "And?!"

"It wouldn't be right."

"For two consenting adults to do precisely what they want? No, of course not -" she raised her hands in mock horror, "heaven forfend!"

He'd retreated behind the desk again, put a fortress of money and authority and age (the desk was a gift from Castlereagh to the first baron, or was it from Canning? He never could remember) between himself and his ex-wife in the hope that a physical barrier might generate some conversational ones as well. She remained standing, looking imperiously down, paying not one jot of attention to the ornate antique.

"Anthony, I know what happened to you was awful. Losing your father was devastating and your injuries." She shuddered, and his stomach churned at the memory, "it was dreadful, and when the arm refused to recover, it was - well, suffice to say, I was there, I know how difficult it was. But darling, at some point, you have to put it behind you. You have to live."

"I've been living." He answered defensively.

"No, you've been working."

The thumb he'd been pushing underneath the corner of the leather cover on his Filofax finally scored its way through and the black fabric ripped away half of the embossed 2015. Maud shuffled the book from between his fingers, lest he do more damage.

"It's not a criticism." She continued, "Far from it, actually. What you've done here is remarkable. Most people in your situation - injured and facing a whacking great inheritance tax bill would've taken the offer from Hilton and called it a day. I think I would've done that. But you didn't, you ploughed time and money into this place and you brought it back from the brink. The farm is profitable and by this time next year, hotel guests will be enjoying afternoon tea in this very room whilst others marry in the chapel and dance the night away in the extension."

"I might yet fall at that final hurdle."

"You won't." Sipping her drink, she furrowed her brow, "but Anthony, lately, I think -" Another sip turned into a swig.

"Say what you want to say Maud, we said we'd talk properly, after all. And life has thrown much in my path, I'm sure I can take it."

She nodded, and looked sorry for him, or perhaps for herself, "I think you're hiding. You came here to do what your father would have wanted, but you retreated here too. Put acres and acres and miles and miles between yourself and civilisation. You didn't go back to London, or to the office, to your friends, to any of it. You simply let your old life die away and I'm not sure you actually created a new one. At some point - some point soon - Locksley will be done and when it is, I worry about you; you need to find a way to be happy."

He scoffed at that, he couldn't help it. He hadn't been happy since - well, since thirty minutes ago on the track to the North field, although that wasn't happiness, not really, that was lust. Urgent and joyous, but fleeting, quickly battered by reality.

"Content then. Satisfied by something more than crop yields and lambing estimates and architects' designs."

"So I should satisfy myself with Edith Crawley?"

"Don't be deliberately obtuse, please. I'm not _telling_ you what to do, or not to do, with that woman. It's up to you. And her, of course. What I'm saying is you need to be brave, step outside the cave, see what a lovely day it is, make something of it. Stop hiding, Anthony."

It was as though she'd skewered into his gut and revealed all his ugliest parts. He was hiding and he didn't think he could be brave.

Taking a deep breath, she addressed the next statement to her knees, before looking up at him, full of steely determination, "Now you can ask me about Libby."

He paused at the stark reminder that his situation could be much, much worse, "How is she, really?"

"Dying." Maud's eyes shone, and she pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, "good days and bad, but the bad win out now, overwhelmingly." There were rare tears trailing down her cheeks, "I'm trying to be brave and stoic and keep a stiff upper lip, but then she wants to talk about funeral hymns and I just want to throw things and scream at the top of my lungs. The hopelessness of it, not being able to do a single goddamned thing about it. Honestly, it's like nothing I have ever experienced – the frustration! I don't know if you've noticed this about me, but I don't cope very well when I lack control."

"No!" He exclaimed in mock surprise, "You hid that well when I booked that surprise holiday to Marbella. And every time I was the one to drive us anywhere. And when I painted our front room without consulting you."

She tried to punch him again, but he dodged her fist and she jabbed out into empty air with a hiccup caught somewhere between amusement and sadness, "It was puce!"

"It was peach."

"Peach then, the point still stands, who wants a peach living room?"

"In 1983?" He countered, "Everyone wanted a peach living room."

She flicked her hair from her forehead and rolled her eyes. This was a gesture he knew well; Maud's particular way of saying - you're wrong, but I am through with the argument.

After a beat she added with a rueful smile and a sniff, "Incidentally I'm sure if Libby was here she'd tell you to get your head out of your ass and sleep with your Maria. Or at the very least serenade her with Edelweiss or something."

He chuckled, "I think perhaps we've pushed the _Sound of Music_ metaphors quite far enough."

"You could drape yourself in the Austrian flag, and shoot some Nazis whilst you do it? Steal some of the kids from the primary school to play your children and dress them in curtains, because apparently patriotic men with large, unruly broods are irresistible."

They were both laughing now. Her hand on his. She caught his chin between her fingers and forced him to look straight into her eyes, "Life is short Anthony, be careful it doesn't pass you by. Now –" She clapped her hands, leant back in her chair and positioned her glasses once more on the end of her nose, "let's talk about the flooring for the ballroom. Wood is cheaper than polished limestone."


	20. Chapter 20

_A/N Thank you, thank you for the reviews._

 _The below is M rated. Scenes of a sexual nature._

Any thought Anthony might have entertained that Maud would cut short their Saturday business meeting so he could, as she'd put it, 'step outside the cave' was quickly relinquished. As much as at every other meeting, she'd come to talk business. The fine tooth comb had been applied to his books, his every decision received comment, even if it was simply to declare it acceptable.

In a way, he was glad of the time to focus on something other than Edith. On the looming decision and the spindles of consequences shooting off from all the possible outcomes. He couldn't simply balance the figures, or examine the percentages, or assess the yield. There much more to lose than money.

Maud left in the early evening, telling him to remember what she said, and not the parts about the business. She'd made the next steps seem so obvious, but it was a damned difficult thing to spend years curled up in a dark cave and then convince your body to unfurl and walk into the light.

Small steps, he decided. So he went to the kitchen and brewed a proper pot of tea. Picked up two mugs and a little jug of milk. He set out a variety of biscuits on a plate and set off upstairs.

Only when he was halfway to Edith's room did he stop and examine the contents of the tray. A teapot with a chipped spout that, in his wisdom, he'd covered in a knitted yellow and orange striped cosy. The mugs had pink ribbons and bows covering their cream surface and, for some reason, he'd fanned the biscuits out like a confectionary flower. The tray, half hidden by everything on it, was covered in kittens. _Kittens_ , for goodness sake.

Never had anyone assembled anything less seductive, less romantic or more ridiculous, in the whole history of human relationships.

Just as he decided to turn back and get wine, or gin, or abandon his attempt at catering altogether, the door to the bathroom opened and a beam of light crept across the dim hallway with him poised right at its centre.

Edith came up to the banister and looked down, "Hello."

"Hello."

"Is that tea?" She asked brightly, "Thank goodness for that." She skipped down the few stairs between them and took the tray from his hands, "I've been dying for a cuppa."

She padded up to the door to her bedroom. The oversized pyjamas she wore were a shiny silk. They caught the light at her shoulder, her elbow, the curve of her hip, the jut of a knee and, when she turned to ask him if he was coming, the vee between her breasts. Sparkling droplets of white. She was a diamond, waiting for him at the entrance to her bedroom.

Before he knew it he was inside. The door shut soundly in his wake.

"Oh hang on, hold this." She handed him the tray and started stacking the various papers and books scattered across the open bureau.

The room glowed. A fire licked in the hearth, a few pairs of socks hung over the guard, undoubtedly drying to cardboard crispness. The navy armchair played host to several woollen items, pearl buttons made orange by the reflected firelight. The bed, with light blue sheets, was made, but messy, like tempestuous seas. In the middle of it was another set of scattered papers and a laptop in a pink case. At one side of the chest of drawers an assortment of bottles was clustered, tallest at the back, smallest at the front. A little selection of jewellery crowded in a crystal dish. Next to that there was a single peach rose in a drinking glass. There was a biting flare of jealousy when he first saw it, as if must have come from a potential suitor, a rival. A rival for what, he hardly knew. He reminded himself that he'd asked her the question: she was single.

Whilst she built a fortress of papers and books on the floor beside the bureau he poured the tea. She took her mug and a biscuit and settled on the bed, legs crossed. He took the chair next to the chest of drawers; putting a safe zone of floor space between them.

She cupped the drink in her hand and took a sip, her eyes fluttered closed. He saw her throat work as the liquid dropped down. It was as though he'd given her water at the end of forty years in the desert, or a glass of Scotch at the end of a stressful Tuesday.

She opened her eyes with a look of pure satisfaction, "Perfect. Thank you."

It was a strange day indeed when a woman's enjoyment of a cup of tea he'd made caused him to blush. Then again, these were nothing, if not strange days.

He cleared his throat and didn't look at her, "You're welcome." And added after a beat, "You might as well not have milk at all, you're basically taking it black." She required only the tiniest dash. Any more than that, as Anna, and Bates and Mrs Hughes had failed to realise, and she got no enjoyment out of the drink at all.

"No, I don't think so. It's too bitter without it. The milk takes the edge off."

Not ready to talk about what they plainly had to talk about Anthony launched into another topic, "What is all of that?" He gestured in the direction of the fortress of papers.

"Research from the archive." The tone of her voice added another word at the end of the sentence: _obviously_.

"I thought you'd come to find the diary."

"I have."

"And you only found the first part of it on Friday."

"Yes."

He shook his head and sipped at his tea, "So again, what's that?"

"All the notes on the things I've read along the way which I've found interesting.'

"Such as?"

Dunking her gingersnap she explained, "Well, on Tuesday I spent the day engrossed in a set of accounts from a solicitor's household."

"Forgive me, I thought you said 'interesting'." Before she could throw a pillow at him he held up his steaming mug of tea and said, "I've only got one arm, I can't defend myself."

She put down her weapon, "It _is_ interesting. Who wouldn't be fascinated by how much a purportedly well-to-do family in 1832 spent on beef versus candles versus ink?"

"Most of the western world." He smiled at her across his cup.

They fought for many reasons during their short acquaintance, but, for him, at least part of the reason he'd encouraged their animosity, consciously or unconsciously, was that she was magnificent in her indignation.

Spine stiffened, cheeks pinched in, eyes narrowed. She donned a whole suit of armour and then picked up a sword to skewer her enemy, "You dismiss it all far too readily. It's not just pounds, shilling and pence on a page. It tells a story about lifestyle and priorities – the health of the family, their sleeping habits, their education levels, to name but a few. Set against other sources it helps recreate the tapestry of the past. Before people bothered to read sources like that one the historians would have us believe that solicitors operated only in London and on large incomes with a captive market of litigious aristocrats. Not so. It is fascinating to learn about the world as it was." She finished off the rest of her biscuit, "You can't claim you were a little surprised, even a little interested, to find that in 1832 your little village had its own solicitor?" He shrugged and she exclaimed, "I knew it!"

He passed her the plate of biscuits and she selected a digestive which she turned in her fingers and put on the bedside table, "How was your meeting with your wife?" 

"Ex-wife." He said, pointedly.

"Yes."

"Productive."

"Did you talk about –" She pursued her lips and her voice emerged a note too high, "me and – what I said?"

"Yes."

She blushed and stared intently into her tea, "Too much to hope that she might just forget about the woman who called your –" She waved her arm about, unwilling to say the word she'd been all too ready to blurt out hours earlier.

"Gentleman's usher." He offered, deadpan serious.

She snorted, "That's a new one. Well, yes, a woman who called _that_ , a steel covered sex piston."

"I believe it was _velvet_ covered steel sex piston."

"Right." She grimaced, "Yes. I suppose that would make someone curious."

"Perhaps if you'd uttered the phrase six weeks ago she wouldn't have been so dogmatically inquisitive. But today, she rather had it in her head that she wanted to talk, and once Maud's mind is made up it is very difficult to change."

Edith looked cross, "I like the sound of her." She said that in a tone of voice which suggested she meant the exact opposite.

"She's my best friend." He wanted to offer some comfort, perhaps he could explain the curious nature of their relationship, "We were best friends at Christ's and she was rather brilliant. And one of only a narrow selection of available woman."

"You could've walked over to Newnham."

"And cross the river?!" He guffawed and smiled, "Anyway, fifteen lady undergraduates at Christ's, Maud the best of them. If you get on well with someone and they like what you like and you bring them home to meet your family and let them see the parts of yourself that you try and conceal from the world, you convince yourself that it's Meant To Be. All the rest follows. It did, we married and, in our way, we were happy. Now I see, of course, that it wasn't right."

Abruptly he grabbed back his cup of tea from the sideboard. He needed something else to do with his mouth, something other than talking, emptying, really, his whole story onto the floor of this bedroom. This bedroom, which currently held so many of his hopes and dreams.

He shook his head, perhaps hoping he'd dislodge his sense from wherever it had hidden, "Amidst all that friendship I missed the reality of it. We were too alike, we argued and butted heads. She was – is – brighter than me at maths and economics - the things I valued and I was young and jealous. And I didn't see what now seems very obvious - that she wasn't in love with me in the way she needed to be, and I wasn't in love with her either. Maud realised though and did something about it – as I said, she is the cleverer of the two of us. Thank God, because now we have all the friendship and the plutonic –" He paused for emphasis on that word and then felt overly conceited at the notion that Edith would care, "love between us without the failing marriage."

At the end of his explanation, she was leaning back against the headboard, arms crossed, lips thinned.

 _Fool_. She didn't need to hear any of that. Why was he boring her with the mundanities of his life? The less she knew about him, the better.

"I'm sorry." She said, unfolding her arms and staring intently at her lap.

"Why are you sorry? I'm the one droning on about my long-dead marriage."

"I'm jealous." She looked embarrassed and threw her hands in the air, "I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm not a jealous person. I mean, I used to be jealous of Mary –" She babbled on, the words racing from her mouth, tripping over one another, "but then I basically realised she was awful person and there was just no point. And why should I be jealous of Maud? I mean, she's gay, first of all. And you've said she wasn't right for you anyway and obviously you're just friends now and – _oh_ – I'll just shut up."

"You're jealous." The words were reverent, joyful, as if they were other words entirely – _you're happy_ – _you're mine_ – _you're pregnant_. Who knew a declaration of jealousy could mean so much? Far from shunning him, she made him feel wanted, desired, even a little cherished. His chest puffed slightly. Gingerly, he moved from his chair to sit on the corner of the bed.

"No need to sound so gleeful about it!"

"You've no need to be jealous."

"I'm not the only one in this room with an irrational jealousy problem – you were jealous of Thomas!"

"I was not!" She crooked an eyebrow, "Okay. A little. Stop looking at me like that! Fine! I wanted to kill him with my bare hands." Or, hand.

"So, what conclusions did your brilliantly clever ex-wife come to on the topic of you and I and your velvet rod?"

"Steel sex piston."

"Whatever!"

A half untruth emerged, "She didn't express an opinion. She forced me to confront some realities and then berated me about the hotel's books for three hours."

"All right." She leant forwards and tilted her head, the bed bowed a little between them and he tipped slightly towards her, "What conclusions did you come to?"

The cup he was drinking from didn't contain sand but suddenly his mouth was dry. He traced his tongue along the ridges in the roof and the backs of his teeth. Words were rising within. A steam train driving through him at full pelt, but there was a wall at the back of his throat; an impossible lump to push them around.

There was such power in her. So much joy and intelligence, he could see see it brimming in her eyes and cresting on the flick of her lip and over the quirk of a cheekbone. He gaped, he knew he did. Marvelling, admiring and then, like always, despairing.

The remnants of his tea shook in the mug. That treacherous, rebellious bit of his brain, small and ugly, hunched in the darkened recesses, crawled out to assert itself, choosing, as ever, the worst possible moment. It was too much. He couldn't look at her any more. She was dazzling, blinding, like sun reflecting on snow, or the white light of a HGV and the blaring of a horn.

He pushed away from the bed and retreated to the chair. The cushion let out a sad wheeze. Bent over, he concentrated on breathing in a steady rhythm.

"Sir Anthony?" She asked.

"I can't do this Edith." The words made him calm, and, at the same time, unbearably irritated. He was a coward.

"I have a feeling that you're not talking about sitting here, drinking tea and eating biscuits with me." He sighed, "I don't want to press you, or to try and convince you, or make you feel bad. But, do you mind if I ask why?"

His breathing levelled out. He braved a glance and found he could manage that, so he sat back and looked squarely at her. Her half smile was full of comfort.

She was a brand new star, just burst to life and he was one long dead, travelling light on one last trip through the universe. If he did this, he'd be syphoning off some of her magnificence for himself, gleaning away slivers of her brilliance. A temporary measure to return to who he once was: a man of the City amidst shining skyscrapers, whose Father wasn't dead and whose body hadn't given up.

He swallowed and searched for a way of expressing it. The words sounded pathetic when they emerged, "It would be like theft."

She looked surprised at that and flipped her legs out from beneath her body and walked to the fireplace, grasping the mantel.

"Theft?" She asked.

"Yes. Taking without giving anything in return."

She blinked, "So you're saying it would be rape." 

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, theft of sex is rape, isn't it? This wouldn't be that Sir Anthony, not in any respect. I want this. I want you. I hope you will get something out of the experience, but that's not why I am asking for it." She repeated herself deliberately and slowly, " _I_ \- want - _you_."

Lost for words. He hadn't properly understood the phrase before, always being a man of some considerable verbosity. He might not find the right words, but the absence of any, at all, hadn't been an issue. Not now. Language alluded him. Perhaps he could manage a grunt, or a cough, a splutter. But a response? Fully formed? To explain that he wanted her like he had never wanted any woman, but – but – _but_ – they were fools for their desire. He was terrified; she'd be disappointed and he'd be destroyed. And yet, he still wanted. For all the fear, the wanting didn't go away.

"Look," she said, "I won't beg. I was done begging for sex a long time ago and I'm not going to start again now. If you want this, we can do it."

He scoffed at that, he couldn't help it, "You've had to beg for sex?"

"No. Not exactly, but I have chased after men who didn't really want me and pretended to be something I wasn't to make them like me. I'm done with that. I've been myself with you, I think, on the whole, and either that's enough, or it isn't."

Men required this woman to be someone different? Idiots, the lot of them.

She went back to the side of the bed and picked up her mug of tea. She enclosed it in the cocoon of her fingers and brought her mouth to the rim, eyes cast down, the steam rendering her skin in dewy pink tones.

It was quite something, desire. He'd forgotten the slow, rolling potency of it, coating everything like thick treacly molasses.

He stood. He would go to her and kiss her on those warm lips. This very minute. He'd lay her down on the blue bed and do precisely what she'd asked and what he wanted. This instant. This very instant.

Instead, dumbly, stupidly, he just stood there, rooted to the floor in front of his chair. Paralysed by the very thing that made him want to move so damned much.

She arched an eyebrow and replaced the drink on its coaster.

She was literally shiny in the silky pyjamas, lit by the firelight and the dim Tiffany lamps. A new ten pence piece. He'd tarnish her, make her dull. He put his hand on the back of his neck, rubbed at his aching muscles. He looked at the hinges of the door and then over to the handle. Leaving would be so easy. And what a relief it would be, to be on the other side of that door. To choose the path already taken. The one he knew; on the map he'd charted.

Edith drew her bottom lip between her teeth. She looked at him expectantly and in slow increments the expectation drained from her eyes. They were left empty and resigned.

Eventually, with a sigh and a shake of the head, she said, "Perhaps we should call it a night then, Sir Anthony?"

She walked across the bedroom. The left leg of her pyjamas was tucked into a ridiculous fluffy pink sock. She'd only accomplished half the task with the other, haphazard fabric fell about her ankle. The collar exposed the slender lines of her neck as she moved and dipped into the promising darkness just above her breasts.

 _Life is short,_ _be careful it doesn't pass you by_ _._

It was so easy, in the end, to step into the unknown.

"I think you'd better call me Anthony."

She reached for the door and replied fiercely, "I think it's perhaps best that I don't."

"I don't think I can go to bed with someone who calls me _Sir_ Anthony."

Her head spun quickly, she looked a delicious combination of startled and stern, "Please just say what you mean."

"If you still want to, I'd like to have sex with you, Miss Crawley."

She smiled and blushed, even though this had all been her idea and she'd been utterly bold in it, "Edith. Call me Edith."

They stood, each smiling at the other, dopey eyed. Bookends with no books.

"What now?" He asked.

"Oh, that's a romantic question."

"I never promised romance." That word trailed off into nothingness as his eyes traced the path of her hands. They came to the front of his shirt, pulled it from the top of his trousers and turned to each of the buttons in turn until he was quite undone.

She fanned out her fingers across his stomach and then over his rib cage, "you're so substantial."

"I – _er_ , I – thank you?"

"Broad too. I never thought much about the broadness of a man, but gosh, it's nice." As she spoke she traced her index finger from one side of his chest to the other. The tip was warm and left a wake of rippling sensation which rolled over him. "And hairy." She pushed her hand into his chest hair and tugged a little. All sense must truly have fled from his head because it was possibly the single most erotic moment of his entire life. He whimpered and she kissed him.

Together they pulled his shirt off his shoulders and away. With clashing fingers and thumbs, she undid his belt and he worked on his fly. Delicately trying to manage it around his insistent erection whilst keeping his lips somewhat proximate to Edith's.

She murmured eagerly against his mouth, "Anthony, I want you."

"You have me." Her fingers stilled at that and he tried to make light of it, "Or you will, you're about to. Let me get out of these trousers." Finally, he was down to his boxers.

Without any grace he managed to shuck out of his trousers and pulled off his shoes and socks too. When he looked up Edith was undoing her pyjama top. He swallowed, his Adam's apple working up and down his throat. The side of her mouth kicked up and she pushed the silk from her shoulders. It floated down her arms and landed with a _shush_ upon the floor.

Little teardrop breasts, she had. Peaked with light pink nipples. Anthony had imagined them a thousand times over. They were not what he'd dreamt, and yet, they were perfect.

"They're small." She whispered.

He fit his hand over her left breast and found it fit neatly in his palm, "They're exactly right."

"For your hand?"

Glancing up at her face, which was no small feat given what was available to look at below that, he smiled, "for me."

He brushed a thumb over the nipple and she moaned her pleasure into a kiss on the lobe of his ear.

"The other one, please." She pleaded.

He was already making the move of his own volition - an embarrassment of riches, her body, and he wanted to explore them all. She was boneless, lolling and listing further into him with each caress. Soft thigh pushing against his erection, arms linked around his neck.

God, he wanted to drive her mad, to make her forget herself, "I wish -" He bit the word out and pinched a nipple – she shuddered against him - "I had two hands."

She spoke, hot and urgent into the space beneath his ear, "you have a mouth."

His knees nearly buckled at that, both because it had quite escaped him that he had at his disposal another means of exploring all she was offering, and because of the implication of the statement.

You have a mouth: _use it_.

"Edith, can we go to the bed?" She nodded her ascent into the curve of his neck.


	21. Chapter 21

_A/N Thank you for the reviews, you're all excellent people._

 _The below is very, very M rated, scenes of sexual nature. Reader discretion advised etc etc._

Edith walked them backwards to the bed, trying to keep as much of her body fitted to his as possible, a moving lock and key. Inevitably, the process was a clumsy one and they landed on the mattress in a ball of flailing limbs. In the melee, Anthony elbowed her in the stomach.

She exclaimed at the contact, let out a sharp exhale of breath.

Anthony recoiled back, an expression of horror on his face, "Oh God, I'm sorry! Are you, are you all right?" He put his hand to the approximate location he'd hit, that soft furrow of flesh between the rise of her stomach and the jut of hipbone. Gently, so gently, far too gently, he ran his fingers along the skin, barely pink from the contact. Her muscles kicked beneath his touch and Edith moaned and bought her hand over his and pushed his palm down flat. Sensation rippled outwards, as if he'd broken the surface of an inland lake on a quiet morning. It pooled in the strangest places - the tip of her toes, the underside of her knees and then in the more obvious ones too between her legs and at her breasts.

"Edith?" It was a question and she didn't want it to be. There were only answers now.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. Just -." Instead of trying to convince him with words, she took his lips in a desperate open mouthed kiss and pulled his weight down on top of her.

He moved away and took her nipple in his mouth. She fisted her hands into the sheets, and panted - breathless, mindless - as he sucked with absolute abandon. Unbidden, her hips arched into his erection and his groan of response vibrated through her flesh.

She'd pictured this. His magnificent face tending to her sensitive breasts.

His hand went to her other nipple and teased. She needed a little more than that. And she wanted more. Usually, she'd let her partner try and figure it out, terrified that she'd scare them off.

"Could you - please -" Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. A needy woman, wanton and pleading. Her breasts quivered. She didn't think anything ever really _quivered_ , save for jelly, perhaps a blancmange, but here were her breasts doing a credible imitation of both. She gasped the words again, "Could you -"

Anthony looked up, drug-eyed and smiling, "What? Anything. I'll do anything."

She beamed and laughed, she couldn't help it, how was it possible she'd got this lucky? To want this man as much as she did, and have him want her back.

"A little squeeze?"

All at once he wasn't smiling, instead he was concerned, "you're sure?"

"Yes. Yes. _Yes_." Three syllables of absolute certainty.

Tentatively, he took one nipple between thumb and forefinger and did as she asked. The pinch was met by a corresponding pulse between her legs. He repeated his success on her other breast, "That's – _fuck_!"

Anthony knew she wasn't a great one for swearing, she saved up her bad words so that she could deploy them for maximum effect. This one emerged without thought, because she knew, instinctively, it was the only word that would do.

He smiled right up to his dimple at her reaction. His broad chest was rising and falling with every heavy breath. It wasn't chiseled but he was sturdier than she expected, his strength and solidity was hidden by all his ill-fitting shirts and thick jumpers. A violent reminder of his accident, a thick slice of mounded white skin, snaked down from beneath his right arm, finishing with a flicked curve over his abdomen. She wanted to kiss it, to trace the tip of her tongue along its length, to make it something erotic to him, to make it something, anything other than a permanent reminder of the horribly tragic event for which he blamed himself. Sweat glistened in the shallow pools above his pronounced collarbone, she wanted to kiss him there too. She wanted to kiss him everywhere.

"You are so handsome."

"Rot." He looked away, as if there was some item of great preoccupation on the headboard above were she lay.

"No." She shook her head and was suddenly eager to be naked, to press every part of her, against every part of him. She scrambled, "Can you? Please."

He took her meaning and relieved her of the silk trousers, pulling them down and off, tossing them carelessly onto the floor. Eons seemed to pass as he looked at what he'd revealed. Slender legs and soft downy thighs. She hoped he'd take her knickers off, and that she wouldn't have to ask. But there was a measure of intensity on his face she'd never seen before, she was afraid he'd changed his mind. Just as he was starting to drive her out of hers.

He glanced at her breasts, his tongue flicking out at his bottom lip. Then he looked away with a frown. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Defeat cloaked him. It was just like earlier when he retreated back to the bloody chair, she'd wanted to pull it out from under him and cast it into the fire. Every time he came close to her he seemed to retreat, like an early explorer afraid to fall off the end of the map.

She pushed up onto her elbows, "what is it?"

He hunched and ran his hand through his hair, "the thing is Edith. It's been a considerable time since I did this. Or anything remotely approaching this."

Casting caution to the wind, she scurried across the expanse of bed which seemed to have opened between them. She slipped her hands around his waist and pressed her breasts into his back, hoping he could feel her hard nipples against his skin. She kissed another scar she hadn't noticed before, just below his shoulder blade, before she kissed his neck, "Anthony, I don't -"

"Let me finish would you?"

She sat back on her heels, a little deflated, worried his insecurities would halt the evening after all. But there was a tug on her wrist and he pulled her flush with him again.

"I certainly haven't done it since the accident." He swallowed, "so that's at least seven years. And before that, I'm not exactly sure, two maybe three years. So you see, you might be the first woman in a decade." He shook his and whispered, almost to himself, "A decade. Blimey." He laughed, but patently found nothing about the situation funny, "And I don't want you to get your hopes up because I wasn't some expert at it before then, even with two working hands and two working arms. Just ask Maud -"

"Maud's a lesbian!"

"Fair point." He turned to face her, again sneaking a look at her breasts as if she hadn't willingly, keenly exposed them for his - and her - enjoyment, "I want this to be good for you." He put his hand on her cheek, ran his thumb down to catch on her bottom lip, "Edith, I want this to be so good for you."

"It will be."

"Your faith is hopelessly, gloriously misplaced."

She rolled her eyes, still telling her how to think even in this, "It will be, Anthony." She kissed him hard on the mouth and then whispered, "I'm turned on. You turn me on." She blushed, but this was no time for an embarrassment induced retreat, she had to be strong, "And I'm wet for you. Hopelessly, gloriously wet."

His eyes flashed, she watched his Adam's Apple rise up in his throat and drop back. A thrill chased down her spine. There was something to be said for the power of plain speaking.

He cleared his throat, "show me?"

"Excuse me?"

He urged her back, so she was lying on the bed again, him sitting beside her, "show me what you like?"

Arousal screamed in her ears.

But he couldn't mean she should - she couldn't - certainly not in front of him - but he wouldn't want that - would he?

His fingers slipped beneath her underwear and unbidden she lifted her hips to allow him to pull them off and cast them to the floor. The triangle between her legs was an object of curiosity for several moments and then he took a knee in his hand and urged her legs apart before looking at her there too. If he hadn't believed her assertions he'd have visual proof of it now.

"Show me, Edith." He urged, his voice deeper somehow, both demanding and uncertain, "Touch yourself."

He did. He wanted her to do _that_.

Her heartbeat throbbed across her body, drummed in her toes and at the pulse at her neck. Her hands were unmoved, settled resolutely by her sides, encased in concrete blocks she hadn't noticed until just this moment.

Why couldn't she be some sex kitten? Masturbating on demand for her partner without any hint of discomfort, flashing a coquettish smile. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished herself a braver woman.

Warmth wrapped around her nipple and pulled, first one, then the other. She gasped and opened her eyes to find pools of blue staring back at her. He troubled her breast with his teeth and then replaced his mouth with his hand. Glancing fingertips back and forth and then, another squeeze.

His breath was warm around the shell of her ear, "You turn me on too. Please show me Edith. I promise I'm not laughing at you, or judging you. I want to know what works." He looked at her then, smiling wickedly, perhaps the first time he'd seemed entirely relaxed since he'd stepped into her bedroom, "and the prospect of the image excites me, I won't lie."

He threaded his fingers within hers and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. A simple gesture which reassured her. This was not a man who lied easily and he would not lie to her. He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, a Regency moment amidst a very twenty-first scene. He murmured against her skin, "trust me."

Then he took the tips of her index and middle fingers into his mouth and swirled them in moisture.

"God, Anthony." She nearly came then and there, ironic given his desire for a demonstration which he presumably hoped would last longer than half a second, "are you sure it's been a decade?" That seemed like the technique of a practiced seducer.

"Oh, I'm quite, quite sure." He bit the tip of her index finger and rested her hand across her stomach, as if furnishing her with the weapon to slay her own desire, or perhaps to stoke it. With a deep breath she shifted, parted her legs, explored her delicate folds and touched herself with very fingers he'd had in his mouth only a moment before. She heard the exhale of his breath, and the bed waxed and waned, presumably as he shifted to get a better view.

There was no earthly way she could keep her eyes open, a curious conflagration of shame and shyness and arousal conspired to force them closed. She concentrated instead on her fingers. She imagined his sight trained on her body and his mouth at her nipples, flesh against flesh. Her hips began to move in counterpoint to her fingers and she bit her bottom lip.

His voice wafted into the fog of arousal, "not direct contact then, but slightly off to the side. Small circles."

Never before in her life had she considered the semantics of her technique. But he was; he was making a study of her, methodical and detailed. Determined to succeed, ready for the moment he took control of her pleasure. His fingers instead. Perhaps his lips. His tongue. She whimpered at the thought.

"What are you thinking about?"

The words twisted around her knees, flirted with the bottom of her thighs. Her eyes fluttered open, he knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed. It would be impossible to get a more direct view of her most intimate parts than the one he had at that very moment. Which was the whole point of the exercise, of course, but she gasped and blushed a beetroot red anyway.

"Ah, don't stop Edith, don't stop." The words were a breathless, whispered plea. He uttered them again, "don't stop."

Somehow she drew the strength to push the mortification away and started up again.

"Tell me what you're thinking about, please."

The answer emerged on an intake of breath as the orgasm built beneath her fingers, "You."

"Don't lie." He urged.

She was in no fit state to argue, but she tried, a series of short sentences skipping and stuttering on gasps and half moans, "I'm not - not lying - _not_. Your fingers. Your lips. Tongue."

He made some noncommittal sound of disbelief - a grunt or a mumble.

What followed was utterly unexpected. There was the brush of hair on her thigh and his shoulders pushing her legs further apart. Just as she opened her eyes to ask him what he was doing, his tongue thrust into the space that was occupied by her fingers and he lapped at her, not once, not twice, but three times. Big, generous motions over precisely the right spot.

She squealed her surprise but it became a moan almost immediately. The coil of tension wound tight in her stomach, she arched her hips, chasing the release.

Then, he stopped.

"No, no, no, no, no!" She was gasping, and a little angry. The words peppered out across her tongue like pellets from a toy gun.

She could see the flock of blonde hair moving away.

Where the hell did he think he was going?! Irritating bloody man.

"Sorry - sorry." He said, "I shouldn't have done that. That was -"

"Don't be an idiot!" She bunched her hands into the sheet, "Oh, God, _please_ , don't be an idiot!" She pleaded, "do it again, _exactly_ like that, keep doing it! Again, again, please!" She'd wanted to be angry and instead she begged, arousal ousting annoyance.

The flash of uncertainty across his features was unmistakeable, the same one from earlier, preceding the same question, "you're sure?"

It was a strange sensation to want to make love to someone and murder them all at the same time.

"Anthony!" She laughed, she shouted, she groaned his name, "Anthony! Now, please!"

And finally - _thank God!_ \- he was convinced. There was even a smile before his mouth disappeared from view.

He was a quick study, this man. Perhaps his decision to stop briefly was actually part of some seduction masterplan, because the interruption only served to heighten the experience. She was knocked off course momentarily but when she returned she had to bite her tongue to avoid telling him to stop, so intense was the swell of sensation between her legs.

Her breath quickened and the rush gathered at the base of her spine. She shoved her hands into his hair and pulled him in closer, desperate to further the connection because she knew - she knew, absolutely - that the power of what was building was not simply a physical reaction but an emotional one too. It was the fact that it was Anthony between her legs; the brave, kind, aggravating man. There was a muffled sound of surprise but he didn't let up. Even more than that, her beautiful one-armed lover found a way to push a finger inside her and then a second.

Perhaps it was the fullness that did it, or perhaps it was simply the fact of him, giving her another part of what she wanted; either way, she came, "Yes, yes, Anthony, yes!"

Orgasm shattered through her, racing across her torso and down her limbs, like a flower bursting into the light and chasing the sun.

When she recovered sufficiently to open her heavy-lidded eyes and convinced her neck to turn the weight of her fuzzy head, he was lying beside her, staring at the contentedly at the ceiling.

A bubble of laughter emerged unbidden from her throat.

He turned, "You laughed like that when we first kissed."

"Yes, well." She sounded drugged, her tongue felt too large for her mouth, "I think perhaps that's how I react to unexpected events."

"Being in bed with me?"

"That, I suppose. But also –" She stopped, embarrassed.

"Yes?"

If she'd had the body strength she'd have lifted a shoulder, bluffed at indifference, but she didn't and she'd promised honesty, "I've never – come –" She whispered, ridiculous prudish instincts, "from _that_."

"Touching yourself?"

"Anthony," She chastised, as much as she could in her soporific state, "you know that's not what made me come."

He smiled at the ceiling and murmured, "I do." She imagined upper class white men in the drawing rooms of 1912 smugly talked about Empire with much the same expression.

"I wish I hadn't told you now, I can practically see your ego inflating."

He shook his head, "Not at all. I'm surprised. And glad." He looked at her and, after half a second of indecision in which his arm hovered in mid-air, reached across the small space between them to brush a damp strand of hair away from her face, "I'm just very glad you enjoyed it."

How wrong she was. His expression was humble, awed. The furthest thing from smug that she could imagine.

In the past she had wanted her boyfriends to orgasm. But only because she knew it meant a quicker end to dull lovemaking. Not so with Anthony Strallan. Undoing this man, turning him entirely inside out the way he'd done for her, seeing him lost in the throes of pleasure; these were needs all their own. And they were _her_ needs, she wanted to be the woman to do it. His satisfaction would be her own.

With a determination she hardly knew she possessed, she forced her body to sit up. He almost looked asleep. With a wicked smile she threw a leg over his hip and rested her weight on his hard cock.

His eyes flew open and his hand went to her naked hip, "Christ!"

"Hello." She kissed the space behind his ear.

"What are you doing?"

"Dancing the Macarena." She whispered as she bit his lobe.

She kissed her way down his chest, tongued a nipple, smiled her delight at his grunt of surprise and laughed when he squeaked as she bit the same flesh.

She arched an eyebrow and said, "turnabout."

She continued her journey down his body. There was more flesh beneath the final arc of his rib cage and she took some of it between her teeth, a quick nip before it sprung back.

He called out in surprise, and, she suspected, with a little pleasure, "ah-ah!"

All those ridiculous novels about people wanting to devour one another - to taste one another - she understood them now. Her mouth positively watered.

It all led to one inevitable conclusion. She pulled his boxers off.

"What are you doing?" Leaning up was difficult for a man with one working arm, and a poorly functioning shoulder to boot. Moving took longer. There had to be an ungainly pivot of the body through the hips and a shuffle. She wasn't going to allow that. She flattened her palm to his chest, pulled the hair again, for the fun of seeing his reaction.

"Just looking."

"Looking is all you have to do."

"Is it?" She looked slyly at him, "Anthony, please tell me that you know nothing I have done this evening was done because I thought I had to do it."

"Yes. Well, good then. But I want you to know that just because I -" He waved his hand around in the air.

She longed to hear him say the words - dirty, crude words - in that glorious voice. Perhaps next time she'd ask him to speak more. To articulate all the detail of what he intended to do, because he had intentions and so did she.

She drew her fingers up the inside of his thigh, "Yes?"

His voice cracked, "I am not expecting you to – in fact, you shouldn't – there doesn't have to be turnabout with, _that_ – I don't expect reciproca -" The words ceased once she had his balls in the palm of her hand. The moment she put her lips to the base of his cock he was a quivering wreck – men could quiver too, apparently - words would've been quite impossible for him, she was sure. He shook so violently she wondered if she should stop, and then she did stop. Frozen, like some erotic tableau.

Then his hand brushed the hair from her forehead and his eyes were brimming with desire. And he managed a whisper, "Please."

It wasn't a request, or a demand. It was need.

There hadn't been any doubt in her mind what she would do; it was more a question of how she would go about it. Now she decided that a slow exploration was not the way. The years of abstinence were wrought across his face and he'd chosen to end them with her. She was humbled by him. Aroused too, and empowered.

Her tongue traced a quick path from the base of his cock to the tip and she took him into her mouth.

His hips writhed on the bed. She swirled over the head of his erection. He was all moans and expletives and her name over and over; the soft benediction on the end of a harshly pleaded prayer, "Christ! _Edith_." "Fuck! _Edith_." "Oh, God! _Edith_ – _Edith_ – _Edith_."

No one had ever said her name that way. Tears sprung into her eyes and she told herself it was simply because of her enthusiasm for the act.

"Oh, fucking hell. Edith, I'm - I'm going to - I'm going to -"

Come.

She knew, because he did.

They lay across the bed. Strewn like unruly throw pillows. Him at an angle, feet dangling off the edge of the mattress. Her lying face down over his lower half, breathing heavily into the crumpled sheets.

His hand found her shoulder, traced a circle and squeezed, "spare me the ordeal of moving, would you?"

She mumbled her refusal into the quilt, but she knew she'd get up and go to him eventually. Moments later, she crawled into the space he made between his arm and torso and fell sound asleep.


	22. Chapter 22

_A/N This chapter/this story/my life has given me such a run around. Sorry for the extreme tardiness. Thank you for the reviews, I really, really appreciate them._

 _Where last we left our duo, there had been a car stuck in the mud, a row, an ex-wife and some bedroom shenanigans…_

The scratch of paper against her cheek, a corner half poking into her eye, woke Edith up. She'd stretched right across the bed, decidedly on Anthony's side. Where Anthony should be, but wasn't. She plucked the note off her face and opened its single crease. The clumsy scrawl was unmistakeable.

 _Edith_

 _Have gone to sort the car. See you at breakfast._

 _A.G.S._

Well, he had said he wasn't offering romance. It stung for a moment. The brevity, the lack of affection. What was he about, signing it 'A.G.S'? As though 'A' wouldn't have done? As if her bedroom was playing host to a revolving door of lovers and she might have become confused between him and Andy or Aiden or Arron.

She screwed the paper into a tiny ball and went to pitch it into the fire, which caused her to realise there was a fire. He must have made it up. Then she noticed the teapot in the ridiculous cosy, a ribbon of white steam emerging from the spout. A croissant sat on a plate next to a fresh mug and a little jug with just a dash of milk.

Sitting at the desk, she perched her feet, cross-ankled, adjacent to the fire and made herself a cup of tea. A memory pushed at the inside of her skull, it had that indistinct sepia quality of a dream. Him brushing a kiss across her forehead and whispering, "see you later." And then, moments later, lips pressing chastely against hers, followed by a cold nose nuzzling lightly into her cheek. She caged her fingers around the mug and smiled. If it was a dream, it was a nice one.

The kitchen at breakfast was, as ever, a hive of warm activity. Sausages sizzled on the pan, next to a bubbling sauce. There was a vase of white lilies and purple thistles at the end of the counter. The kettle whistled a cat call of appreciation at her arrival. It was a grey winter morning, but somehow the windows gathered together all the limited light and made it count.

Edith was poised to bounce to her usual morning routine. Toast from the rack, with a generous helping of butter and one of Anna's round, fat poached eggs, if she was feeling obliging, with a sausage or two on the side.

Today, however, she had to fight against that old cliché: the morning after the night before. Everything halted at the sight of Anthony at the kitchen table. All the certainty of the last twelve hours retreated. Edith was fifteen, and facing that most confusing of species: The Boy.

A whiny voice whimpered uncertainly from the back of her brain. What if he doesn't like you any more? What if he never did? What if your blow job was terrible? What if it was too enthusiastic? What if he hates your body? What with your small breasts and your pot belly, why would this man ever want you? By now, the voice sounded like Mary's.

 _Stopit_.

Calmly, she reminded herself of the fire, the tea, the croissant and the possible kiss. And the fact that she was a grown goddamn woman, who had wanted this man and had, had him. No expectations. This was certainly not a moment to let insecurities ride roughshod over her self-esteem. This was _good_. She would not let her addled brain make it bad.

She considered the free chairs around the table, the one furthest from Anthony was occupied by Bates, Anna sitting in his lap.

Her fingers feathered the edge of the one across from Anthony and then didn't think she could bear to look straight at him and face the plague of that voice again: Why isn't he looking at me? Why is he looking at me like that? What is he thinking? Intolerable. She took the seat nearest and angled her body away from him.

Anna filled a silence she probably hadn't realised was awkward, "Edith! Tea? Eggs?"

Anna bustled about preparing the breakfast. Edith stole a glance at Anthony, he was trying, and failing to skewer his final sausage, watching it dart from one side of his plate to the other.

"Edith?"

"What?!" Startled, she wrenched her head up and shouted her response.

Anna looked puzzled, "Settle something for John and I, would you?"

"Oh God." Bates moaned from his place at the far end of the table, "Do we have to involve _another_ person?"

"But Anthony was useless."

"Thank you _very_ much." Anthony smiled ruefully at Anna. As he returned his attention to his breakfast his eyes tracked over Edith and found her looking at him. Immediately the smile fell from his face, and he went back to trying to wrangle the last of his breakfast.

"What is it Anna?" asked Edith, her voice quaking as she recoiled from Anthony's cold shoulder.

"Christmas."

"Anna, we do not have to trouble poor Edith with this."

Anna spun around, holding her wooden spoon like a sword, she jabbed it at Bates, "Shush you." She turned back to her poached eggs, "Christmas. This will be the first one for John and I as a couple. I want to spend it here. Huge tree, ridiculous tinsel, pound shop ornaments. Piles of presents. I'll cook. There will be a turkey." Edith knew the exact size of the bird from the way Anna shaped it in the air with her hands, "All the trimmings. Carols around the out of tune piano and so much wine that we will pass out by midnight at the latest." She set a fresh pot of tea down, "It will be picture perfect. And, of course, we won't be able to do it next year because this place will be a thriving hotel and I'll be its harried manager."

"That sounds great, what's the problem?"

"Bates thinks he must go to dimmest, darkest Carlisle and spend it with his mother and father and his awful siblings. As well as his flatulent grandfather and his Uncle Eddie, who is homophobic, racist and sexist - the holy trinity of Daily Mail awfulness." She served up Edith's breakfast and returned to her seat on Bates's lap, "So that's what we need you to settle – is it to be perfect, idyllic Locksley, or horrid, traumatic Carlisle?"

"I'm not the person to ask about this. It's a difficult decision."

"Leave the poor woman alone."

Anna ignored Bates's plea and asked, "What did you do?"

"When?"

"With that professor of yours. What did you do for Christmas?"

In her chest, her heart stopped dead at the word 'professor' and her windpipe tied into a series of interminable knots at phrase 'of yours'. This was not the way for your latest – whatever Anthony was – lover, paramour, boyfriend, one-night stand, – to find out about the man who preceded him. She didn't need to be sitting across from Anthony now, to know he was looking at her.

Instead of answering, Edith smashed a rock hard corner of butter onto her toast, made a poor attempt to spread it and shoved practically half the slice of bread into her mouth. If she was chewing, she couldn't be talking, and she could strategize.

"You were together for a school year weren't you?"

Half-choking on her dry toast, Edith tried to motion to Anna to change the subject, but it turned out to be an entirely impossible signal to convey in subtle, mid-breakfast sign language.

"It was serious, wasn't it? You must have had the Christmas conversation?"

Why had she told Anna about Gregson anyway? What compulsion had driven her to try and make friends with this woman who couldn't understand the desperation in Edith's eyes that she _please just shut up_?

Finally, the accursed toast was swallowed and Edith was no closer to an answer.

She poured far too much milk into her tea and followed it with heaped spoon after heaped spoon of sugar, stirring frantically until she realised her teaspoon could practically stand up in the syrupy mixture she was left with.

"I – er – I went home to my parents. And –" She glugged some tea, grimacing, "he went home to his."

Anna's shoulders dropped. Not the answer she'd been hoping for. Then, as if realising she'd lost the battle, but not the war, she perked straight up, "But _why_ was that? You must have talked about it and decided on that course of action?"

Next to her, Anthony was still jabbing at that last piece of sausage, the tines scratching rhythmically at the crockery, a blank expression on his face.

The toast sat, lead-like, in her stomach. She did not want to talk about Michael Gregson, not now, not ever. But most particularly not now.

Brusquely, she said, "We didn't discuss it, Anna. It was just accepted. But then, Michael and I – " She said the rest to Anthony, but without looking at him, "we weren't like you and John. From the first moment I saw the two of you, I thought: there are two people who are meant to be, two people who fit. Michael and I never fit. Michael was passing time with me and, when I look back on it, I was just passing time with him too. I think, at Christmas, we should be with the people we love."

There passed several beats of silence at that. As if they were all taking a moment of silence, mourning the sad case of Edith's romantic life.

"Well, you're no use either. Bates loves me, _and_ his bloody family, so we're still at square one."

Anna swept the last of the plates into the sink, still strategizing about Christmas. Bates interjected from time to time, attempting to make his case once again. Eventually they left, the argument fading the further they went from the kitchen.

Edith looked at Anthony, Anthony looked at Edith. He pushed his knife and fork into the centre of his plate. She took a sip of the grotesque tea. He sniffed. She cleared her throat.

The silence stretched and stretched between them; tense and oppressive.

Edith grasped at a thread of conversation, trying to restore some normality, her voice sounded uncommonly loud breaking through the quiet, "I didn't know Anna was going to run the hotel?"

"Yes."

"What about her nursing?"

"She's been managing the B&B since she moved in and she's enjoyed it. She wants the challenge of doing it on a grand scale, full-time."

"You trust her with it?"

"I trust her with my life. She saved me after the accident. Six nurses before her, none of them could manage me. But Anna –" He shook his head and smiled, "Anna never gave up. I pushed and pushed, and she pushed right back. Compared to that, managing this place will be easy."

She pushed her leg playfully against his, "You can't have been that bad."

He cast his eyes to the ceiling, "You have no idea."

Gingerly, she brushed her fingers across his cheek, silently swooning at the faint bristles she felt there.

Almost imperceptibly, she felt his cheek push into the touch. He closed his eyes and then opened them, staring down at the table. Without warning, he stood, his chair rocking precariously on its legs. He took up his plate and went to the sink. He watched it plunge into the muddy water and looked at her over his shoulder, frowning all the while, almost like he was annoyed to still find her there.

"I don't know how to do this, Edith."

The pale morning illuminated one side of his face, but his whole expression was dark.

"What?"

"This." He drew his hand through the air, shaping an invisible line across the kitchen between them, "I don't know how to go on now, with you. Last night –" The words were suffused with wonder, "Last night was breath taking. Although I feel silly thinking that, let alone saying it. It was probably just me. Not for you, I suppose. But for me, it was –" He trailed off, fidgeting and biting his bottom lip.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and spread slowly across her face. A little parcel of joy unwrapped in her middle and spilt its gifts through her chest, "Anthony, for me too."

"Oh." He pushed his hand through his hair and nodded, "Oh. That's, good then. That we agree."

"Yes, our agreeing on something is good, not to mention fairly rare." She smiled into her lap.

"Do you perhaps –" She waited, "do you want to – well, if you wanted to – and you don't have to, we could go back to how it was, if you like. We could just play chess and have driving lessons." He trailed off, uncertain.

"I don't want to do that." The words came out in one long quick string – _idontwanttodothat_ \- "Or rather, I'd like to continue driving, and playing chess, but I don't want to do _just_ that." She took a breath and propositioned him for the second time in as many days, "We started something last night, I'd like to finish it." He appeared unmoved, as though he hadn't heard her, "Anthony?"

"Good then. That's settled." He sounded like the epitome of a gentry farmer, as though they'd done a deal for fourteen piglets and a sheepdog.

She laughed and said with as much lawyerly solemnity as she could imitate, "Shall we shake on it?"

"Don't mock me, please. I told you, I don't know what I'm doing."

"I know; you're going to need some help from me."

He grimaced at that, "I suppose."

"So stubborn! Kiss me?"

"Excuse me?"

"This is me helping. You should kiss me now."

She stood and he closed the space between them. His arm was nearly at her waist, ready to furl her into the safety of his chest, when her phone rung.

So rare was the event of an actual phone call that Edith nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound. Raising her hand to him she said, "Hold that thought."

"Holding." He said.

Mary's name flashed on the screen. She turned the ringer off and put the phone on the table.

"You're not going to answer it?"

"And speak to Mary voluntarily? I think not. Where were we?"

This time, he did catch her in his embrace, too reluctantly for her liking. Coaxing rather than claiming. Small hesitations as he pushed himself across invisible barriers. His hand onto her back, softly, before lodging there with purpose. She had to push her chest against his. The wait for the kiss was almost agony as he paused midway, and glanced into her eyes, as if waiting to be told to stop, expecting it. Finally, their lips touched,

The violent churning of the travelling phone vibrating across the kitchen table pulled them apart again. Edith could happily have punched someone, she lowered her forehead to Anthony's shoulder and moaned dramatically.

"For goodness sake, she calls me once every six bloody months and then twice in the worst two minutes possible. She is infuri –" It dawned on her then, her whole breakfast threatened an evacuation. There was only one reason Mary might call her this many times.

"Oh God, Sybil!" She lunged out of Anthony's arms and grabbed for the phone.


	23. Chapter 23

_A/N Oh, thank you, thank you for the wonderful reviews! They keep me writing. You're all marvelous, magnificent people. Sorry for the delay. Next chapter basically done, I promise!_

 _(I am not a doctor. Just in case there are any medics reading this and feeling critical [ho-ho!])._

"Anna! Anna!"

Anthony's shouts reverberated around Locksley's cavernous entrance hall.

"What on earth?" Anna emerged from the snug, Bates following quickly behind, "What's happened?"

"It's Edith's sister, she's been in an accident."

"The pregnant one, or the evil one?"

"The pregnant one."

"God." Bates said.

"Take her upstairs would you? Get her things together."

With a sense of calm and speed found only in the nursing profession, Anna went to her task.

Anthony turned to Bates, "Grab the scotch or something would you, she's, she's -"

Fear crawled around in his stomach, tried to claw its way up his throat. When Edith had taken the phone call from Mary, as perfunctory as it was serious, all the colour drained from her face. A moment of fun, a moment of possibility between just the two of them, became a moment of horror that expanded far beyond Locksley, beyond Yorkshire and into Edith's whole life.

Life's way of reminding you not to get too comfortable, everything could change in the beat of a heart. Utterly merciless was the arbitrary, indiscriminate hand of fate. He was afraid for her, and angry too, angry that he was powerless to do anything about it.

 _Take me_ , he'd thought, _I'm lost already - take me_.

"She's bad. It's bad, Bates."

"Her sister's in London?"

"Yes."

"It'll take five, maybe six hours to drive."

"Train?"

"From Leeds, yes, but it's Sunday and they're upgrading the line - coach between Milton Keynes and Watford."

"How long?"

"On a par with driving, I'd say."

Five hours at best. Mary had offered precious little information but there was every chance Sybil wouldn't last five hours.

"Christ."

An idea presented itself. Ludicrous, but possible. Bates went to ply Edith with a little fortifying liquor and Anthony dived into his study and went to the cupboard beneath his bookcase. An old document box stamped with a Sachs' label and his name. It was delivered nearly seven years earlier and he hadn't once opened it. Now, he ripped into the lid and threw half the contents onto the floor, some framed pictures from Cambridge, his expensive Mont Blanc fountain pen and inkwell, a couple of leather bound folders, a cheap figurine of _The Son of Man_ and then, finally, in the bottom corner, there it was: his rolodex. He took it up onto the desk and spun it to the right section.

It was a testament to Edith's fraught state of mind that she barely flinched as a large black helicopter landed on Locksley's manicured lawn. The downwash from the beating propellers forcing the last of the crusty autumn leaves from the trees.

The same could not be said for Bates and Anna, who, in almost robotic unison turned their heads to look at him, mouths gaping gormlessly.

"What the hell is –" Bates trailed off, his words barely audible over the heavy _thwump-thwump-thwump_. Helicopters were much larger close up than one expected, and the noise was quite something. Anthony was shocked during his first few flights.

Anna shook her head and shouted, "how did you do this?! Are you Christian Grey?"

" _Who_?!" He shouted back.

She waved the query away and the pilot emerged and opened the doors waving them over. Edith walked mutely forwards and Bates followed, as if concerned she might not make it unaided. Anthony started towards the helicopter to but found Anna's hand on his arm.

"You're going?"

Dumbly, he blinked twice and a third time, "Of course."

"You know Edith's sister was in a car accident?"

"I do."

"You'll be all right?"

He bristled a little at the suggestion he might fall apart. But it wasn't without supporting evidence. He'd never returned to a hospital, even the rehabilitation clinics he and Anna used to attend made him feel unwell. Then there was the incident at the Bruce Springsteen concert with the bright lights during the chorus of _Born To Run_ and the sudden sensation that he was back in the car, being blinded by high beams. After a speedy exit, he'd been sick outside the venue. And, of course, he still found it all but impossible to talk about the accident, or his father, without his insides wanting to self-ingest themselves.

But this was for Edith. If ever there was a moment to face his demons, his fears: this was it.

"I will." He said decidedly.

Then he was in the seat next to Edith, watching her watch the green fields meld into spaghetti roads, pylon necklaces and splotches of rooftop, before becoming the grey hodgepodge of the capital, the sun glistening on the skyscrapers of the City in the distance.

A black cab took them from the Goldman Sachs building to Guy's and Anthony found himself inside a hospital for the first time in seven years.

It was the smell that hit him first, before the squeak of linoleum floors and the blare of the strip lighting. That _particular_ hospital smell. Of things scrubbed so clean any true sense of cleanliness was gone, they existed in some other artificial world now; a chemical world and, of course, it wasn't clean at all.

Edith was hurrying and so he didn't have time to focus on the unpleasantness of it all. Instead, he swallowed the instinct and kept up with her, his heart pounding.

They followed the white dotted line, some perverse play on the yellow brick road, winding past gurneys, curtain cubicles, happy faces, sad ones and lines of soon-to-be mothers engaged in the full range of the childbirth chorus - panting, screaming, gasping.

"Oh God." Edith dived to her left, into a small waiting room.

He watched through the slightly wavy glass, crisscrossed with thin black lines. An older couple were sat in chairs to the right of the room. Across the other side, her back to them, and seemingly oblivious to Edith's arrival, a tall austere woman stood facing the wall - Mary presumably - self-absorbed even in this moment. Standing beside her was a handsome blonde man, head bowed, lips moving, as if trying to coax her into conversation. In the centre of the room, almost bent double in his chair was a younger gentleman, he stared at the floor tiles with blank eyes. It must be Tom Branson. The look of despair he wore was one Anthony knew well, he'd seen it when he looked in the mirror for months after the accident. Two seats over from him, sipping tea, was an old woman, thin lipped and stoic.

Edith was kneeling now, her expression frenzied and darting from one face to the next as she engaged in frantic conversation with the older couple, presumably her parents. Her father shook his head and her mother turned her face into his shoulder, body shaking. Slowly, Edith stood, eyes wide. Her mouth moved, short syllables. He worked it out, "no, no, no, no." she said. The rise and fall of her chest was heavy, even through the imperfect glass, he could make out the shining tears on her cheeks. His own heart sunk with hers. The news wasn't good, that much was obvious, possibly it was terrible. Suddenly he was lying in a bed at Leeds General, body broken, Maud stroking his hair and telling him that she was very sorry but his Father was dead.

Anger daggered through him. Her parents just sat there, her Father's arm draped around her Mother's back. Mary marble-like and unmoved in the corner. Her male friend spared Edith a glance, but no more. The old woman's eyes were averted, as if her expression of emotion was not to be encouraged with something so gratuitous as sympathy.

Why was no one comforting her? He balled his hand into a fist. _Do something, someone, anyone?_

His head jerked from one occupant of the room to the next, each seemingly more apathetic to Edith's plight than the last. He willed them to get up, to offer her the care she needed, just a moment to lend her some strength. Then she could show them, she could be their rock if they'd let her. She was so bright and brave; she could do anything. Stepping forwards, he decided to do it himself, to wrap her in his limited hold and whisper words of comfort, words of hope into the shell of her ear.

His hand hovered just above the handle of the door.

But how would it look? Some old man barging in on a family's private grief as if he had a relationship worth the name with their middle daughter. Edith might not thank him for it, raising questions at an already difficult time.

"Excuse me." A white coated doctor raised an eyebrow and Anthony stepped back and away to let him go in. He retreated to the other side of the corridor, thinking perhaps he should leave, but somehow unable to face the walk to the exit.

A few minutes later the doctor emerged and the Crawley family followed. Mary and her – boyfriend - if his arm around her waist was any indication. Her father with a hand on Tom's shoulder, trailed by her weeping mother. The stoic old woman – the grandmother, surely - keeping apace, despite her stick, and then Edith, arms crossed over her stomach, head bowed.

On seeing him she managed a wobbly smile. He wanted to say - _you don't owe me a smile_ \- _if you're sad, be sad_ \- _if you're scared, be scared_ \- _I'll be here regardless_. But it seemed foolish, so he just returned her expression and asked, "how is she?"

"The baby survived, we're going to see her. _Her_! I'm an aunt to a niece." The excitement in her voice was there, but overlain with fear.

"Congratulations." He whispered.

The smile shook and she lost the battle to keep it on her face, her voice cracked, "but Sybil isn't good. They had to remove her - her -" she wafted a hand in the area of her womb, "and she lost a lot of blood and isn't breathing properly and the doctor used big medical words – pulmonary embolism - which amount to - " she took a breath and pushed the words out, "we have to prepare for the worst."

"Oh Edith. I - " There were no words he could say, no pearls of wisdom to make this better. She wrung her hands.

Could he comfort her? Pull her into his chest, stroke her hair? Did she want it from him? What if she shoved him away? She might. They were nothing to one another, after all, one occasion of mutual pleasure and some kissing aside.

Before he knew it, it was too late, a shrill voice barked down the corridor, "Edith!" Her sister jerked her head, "come on!"

Edith looked up at him with watery eyes and instead of being useful, instead of doing _something_ , he just said, "Go and see the baby, I'll be in here with coffee when you get back."

"Thank you Anthony."

He watched her disappear into the recesses of the corridor and then through a door. Immediately he sank down into the nearest chair and put his head in his hands.

The smell made him retch and old anxieties pushed at the inside of his skull, pressing at the backs of his eyes. _What the hell was he doing here? What was he thinking?_ He took a deep breath and barely felt it in his lungs. He hated this place. The smell was worse somehow. He stood and walked straight into a portable heart monitor with an attached defibrillator. A nurse shouted at him to "be careful!". Everything here was a reminder of the nearness of death. Doctors walking the thin line between the realms, as if they were Gods on earth. He hated them. And this place, with its noises and its machines and its tragedy. And its bloody, awful smell. Suddenly, his feet were carrying him towards the exit.

The cool fresh air blasted across his face and he gulped it down as if he was descending from great altitude. He staggered to a bench and lowered himself down on shaky knees. Edith didn't need him here. Edith didn't need him. He was a wreck.

He wanted to leave. He wanted to be away, to be back at Locksley doing what he knew he could.

He took several more hits of the fresh air, like some reckless drug addict with an unlimited supply.

But he'd promised her he'd wait. He'd promised her a coffee. Standing and nodding, he decided he could manage to get her the drink and then he'd make his excuses and leave her with her family.

The first coffee went cold, the second too, she arrived back just as he fetched the third. Her cheeks were flushed and she wiped the last remnant of a tear from beneath her eye. He handed the drink to her.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me until you've tasted it. Starbucks it is not."

She stared into the surface of the liquid, the hard water making the coffee coagulate on the rim of the polystyrene cup, "I'm not – I'm –" The words were languid, as if being dredged from the back of her brain by a net and cast, haphazard, ashore, "I don't think I can –" She frowned at the drink and then at him and then at the people around them and the wall of drinks machines and the nurses station and up at the ceiling. Frantically looking, although he doubted she knew what she hoped to find.

"Edith."

Her chin began to tremble.

" _Edith_."

"The coffee." She held the cup out at him, "I don't want coffee. I don't –"

"That's ok." He replied, gently, "Shall we get some water, or a coke? They have one of those healthy vending machines with juices."

"Why are you asking me about juice?"

"I'm not, but you should drink something and eat something."

Her chest was rising and falling fast, her breath coming and going in ragged exhales, "I can't eat. Are you –" He eyes narrowed and she shook her head, "I don't want to eat."

"Let's go outside then. We can get some fresh air for a bit." 

"Fresh air? Fresh air!" She shouted and, people nearby turned to look, "I don't want fresh air! I just – I –" And, then she was sobbing and Anthony wanted to smash everything and everyone in the world for making it happen.

"Edith, don't –"

"The baby, Anthony. She's so tiny. But she has hair. That same deep brown hair that Sybil has. This little cowlick of it. Her eyes are so tiny, they barely open, but they're brown too. She's a miniature Sybil, but – Oh, _God_ , what if – what if – what if she never knows her mother. What if Sybil dies and, what if -"

"Edith, _stop_." The hand curled around her cheek stilled her, and the thumb over her mouth silenced the words. She blinked up at him – once, twice – and the tears rolled down and over the flesh at the base of his thumb, "Take it from someone who knows, no one ever wins the _what-if_ game. You don't know what is going to happen to Sybil so, for now, you have to live minute to minute, hour to hour. Concentrate on being strong for the baby and for Tom and for Sybil. Get through this next minute without thinking of the possibilities and then worry about the next. I know you historians don't like it, but short-termism is the correct approach to this, trust me."

Slowly, he took his hand away, balling up his fingers to catch her tears in his palm.

She took the coffee back and sipped, grimacing immediately before taking another glug.

"Better?" He asked.

"A little." She nodded.

"Come on, the cafeteria is this way, we'll get some lunch."

"And then what?"

He looked down at her and shook his head with a wry smile, "What did I say? Lunch is our next minute; we'll decide what's next when we get to it."


	24. Chapter 24

They stood in line to pay for greasy lasagna and sticky toffee pudding. Shuffling down the counter alongside other sad looking people. Anthony was reminded of one universally acknowledged truth: no one ever wanted to be in a hospital.

They sat down and Edith remained uncharacteristically quiet. Once he'd had the art of conversation, he'd had the whole gallery, but he was sorely out of practice. He wasn't the person to fill the silence, to buoy the mood. He should've bought Anna.

At least she was eating, she'd made it through about a third of the pasta and was picking the raisins from her desert.

"How are you feeling?"

"A little better." She pushed the remnants of the toffee sauce around her bowl, "you really know about the short-term versus long-term debate?"

He replied, "I do have an o-level in history, you know." Immediately, he regretted it, nothing said ' _look how old I am_ ' better than an admission that one took o-levels. He ploughed on, hoping she'd ignore it, "The assassination of Franz Ferdinand didn't cause World War One. Napoleon was defeated before he'd begun. I mean, I always thought it was nonsense."

"Of course you did, you're an economist."

"Excuse me, I am a mathematician."

"Same thing."

He barked a laugh, "That is a grotesque insult! I demand a retraction!"

She smiled, and it warmed him through. Then she laughed and he glowed.

A sharp voice cut through the atmosphere and Edith was silenced, face guarded, "Having fun?"

Neither of them had noticed Mary standing beside their table. He'd been so preoccupied in Edith, so desperate to get her to eat and engage, and then, when she smiled and laughed, so entirely wrapped up by her warmth, he was oblivious to his surroundings. She could've been standing there five seconds or five minutes.

"What do you want Mary?" asked Edith.

"I'm so terribly sorry to interrupt!" Her tone was sickly sweet but venomous, "What a charming pair you make! Enjoying your little deathbed date?" Her eyes narrowed as she tossed the horrid verbal missile - _deathbed date_.

"Mary! That's a horrid thing to say, Sybil isn't – and Anthony isn't - "

"Oh, please Edith, I can hear you giggling and simpering from across the cafeteria. Sybil is in the fight of her life and you're in here with some -" Her eyes darted to him and looked him up and down, a sneer curling on her lips, "man you barely know."

" _Mary_ \- " It was as though Edith had become physically smaller, shrinking right into the back of the chair

"No, it's fine!" She said, sarcastically, "I'm _so_ glad you're able to use this experience to leverage your love life. I suppose someone as desperate as you has to use whatever opportunity presents itself. Maybe the two of you can get married at the funeral?"

"That's enough!" Anthony was standing now, and drew himself up to his full six foot two inches. Mary was a tall woman but nowhere near him. If he was intimidating her physically, he didn't care. This was not to be born, this cruelty. She stepped back.

"Despite what you might think, Ms Crawley, attacking your sister will not give you more control over this tragic situation. Attacking her will not make your own fear any less. I will not allow you to talk to her in this manner. Don't be so bloody selfish."

Mary glanced down at Edith and back at Anthony, "Who the hell are _you_ to tell me anything?"

What he would have given at that moment for a title, a status that might wield some power – boyfriend, husband, father of her children. Instead he said the truth of it, "I'm Edith's friend. Leave her alone."

She stood a little taller and her eyes narrowed, he prepared to react to some return volley, a jibe, perhaps about his arm or his age. Instead, she turned on her heel and marched out of the room.

He took a breath and sat back down. Edith's fist covered her mouth, shaking slightly.

"I'm sure she didn't mean any of that. She's just upset and worried -"

Edith interrupted, "She's a bitch. It's always been her way. If she feels bad, she goes out of her way to make me feel worse, even now, when the whole reason for it is our own sister being –" Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, "She's a bitch."

"Perhaps." He conceded.

"And she might be the only sister I have left by the end of the day. Oh God." She pressed the heel of her hand into her forehead, "Oh _God_. Please, please Anthony, can we talk about something else, anything else, at all, but Sybil and Mary and this whole bloody awful mess, something, please."

It would have been the proper thing, the nice thing, to pick some innocuous topic – chess openings, the kind of car she might like to drive on day. But instead he asked the question that had burned insistently in the back of his mind since this morning, in spite of all the events which had followed, "Who is Michael Gregson?"

For a moment she was a statue, hand halfway to reaching for her drink, eyes widened into saucers, reflecting all the yellow light in the room. Then, her lips twitched and split into a broad smile and she laughed and sighed at the same time, "Well, that's certainly something else!" She chuckled again, "I suppose I did give you free reign on the subject choice. I should have been more specific and suggested a more pleasant topic – poison ivy, or moths, or enemas, or something."

"Poison ivy?"

"Stung when I was a child."

"Moths?"

"They follow you around the room." She said, in a deadly serious voice.

"Enemas." 

"Never had one, but I'd imagine they're unpleasant."

"But alas, you were not specific."

"No."

He waited, and half thought to take the question back. He was beginning to feel bilious at the idea of learning about the man who had come before him. There could be no answer he'd like.

"Michael Gregson. Michael. Gregson." Edith opened her mouth a few times to start, and then closed it again, before shrugging, "My last boyfriend. A Professor."

"That much I gleaned from this morning's conversation."

"Yes, of course." She rubbed her hand across her forehead, "Remind me to thank Anna for that." She took a sip of water, "There's not so much to tell. He supervised my MA and he asked me out a little after I started at King's and we broke up about ten months later."

That was quite enough information really. He should tell her to stop.

The silence was something to be filled, or ascent to continue and so she carried on, unaware of his thoughts, "I thought I was so lucky. He was a pioneer of the history of masculinity and a professor at a young age. Totally revered by everyone. I couldn't believe he wanted to go out with me. I was utterly infatuated."

Anthony wondered if it would look odd to smash his hospital tray across the floor.

"I catered to his every whim and subsumed all my hopes and desires to accord with his. Pathetic, really. Then we went to this conference on late nineteenth century gender dynamics at Aberdeen University. The place was full of academics and MA students and PHD students, rafts of clever people. There was a drinks mixer on the Saturday night and I went to get the two of us a gin and tonic from the world's slowest barman. And when I came back –"

He was leaning forwards in his chair now. Sitting right at the edge waiting for what came next. Wondering if this pathetic excuse for a man had hurt his Edith. His fist curled against his leg, he was certain he could throw a fairly good punch with his left hand.

"He was talking to this woman from Yale, laughing and pontificating and holding court – flirting too. Doing all the things he'd done with me at first. And I realized - he'd throw me over for her in a heartbeat. It was a moment of such revelation. I had changed my entire self for this man and had nothing in return. We soldiered on for a few months, but, of course, everything was different. When I stripped away all that ridiculous adulation, I saw that he wasn't half the man I thought. He was rather shallow, actually, and not all that clever. And of course, I was different." She tilted her head and scrunched her nose, "Well, not different, I suppose, I was myself and, as it transpired, he didn't like me very much."

"Idiot." He said instantly and with some feeling. Then he flushed and garbled on, "I don't know – I don't understand - how anyone could not like you."

Her eyes flicked across his face and she wore a pinched, pleased sort of smile, as though she'd won an award but her pride was tempered by the natural instincts of embarrassment and modesty. Pink circles rose in her cheeks, "Thank you."

"Yes, well."

He cleared his throat and started to stack the trays and bowls, carrying them, balanced precariously on his left hand, to the area signposted. When he returned to the table her face had ceded again into shadow, she stared into middle distance and gasped when he said her name.

"What now?" She asked.

"We have some time, I think, until we'll have news?"

"Eight hours until the surgery is over."

"We could get a hotel room." He choked as he heard himself say it. A proposition, he hadn't meant, "To sleep, I mean, watch some TV. I didn't mean –"

"I know what you meant, Anthony." She shook her head, "I can't. I can't leave the hospital just in case something – just in case."

"Ok. Let's see if the shop has a chess set shall we?"

Anthony lost count of how many games they played on the tiny magnetic chess board they bought. For some they discussed tactics as they went, tried to learn from one another, and during others they were silent, each set on winning.

After he spent a good ten minutes considering whether to swap his his rook for a bishop and, two moves down, a pawn, he felt a weight brush his shoulder and then rest fully atop it. Gingerly, he turned his head and found Edith had fallen asleep, he smelt the lavender in her hair. He lowered her down so her head was in his lap. She kicked her feet up onto the bench with a soft murmured promise that she was just shutting her eyes for a minute. A nurse covered her with a blanket starched to within an inch of its life. After he'd indulged himself contemplating the elegant lines of her nose and cheekbones and the little pink bow of her lips, he fell asleep too.

The roar of a horn paired with the scream of tires and blinding white light assaulted his senses and he woke with a jolt. Immediately his hand went to the back of his neck. He wasn't in the car with his father, moments from certain death, he was waking from a brief unsatisfying nap in a worn waiting room chair and he'd got a crick for his troubles, massaging at the skin he swore, "Christ."

"Edith will do."

Only when he rubbed his eyes vigorously did she come into full view, looking down with a fond smile.

"Are you all right?"

"Times s'it?" He asked, groggily.

"5.30 in the morning."

"Unholy hour."

"Sorry."

He waved away her concern, "Forget about me. How's your sister?"

"Awake." Edith put her head in her hands and mumbled in the direction of her lap, "She remembers her name, and her birthday. She gave us a bit of a fright when she told the doctor the Prime Minister was Jeremy Corbyn, and then she said it was just wishful thinking on her part."

"Able to joke then, that's a good thing."

There was a pause as she collected herself, "Oh, Anthony," she sat upright again, "I was so frightened. I feel as though I've been ripped into tiny shreds and pieced back together like a human jigsaw puzzle. Everything is in the right place but, nothing is quite as it should be. And I know, I know in my bones, that none of us will ever be the same again."

"Yes. You have it exactly right." She'd articulated in a couple of sentences, the way he'd felt for seven years, "That's the effect of trauma. You might survive the event, but the body - the brain - never forgets the fear. One learns, simply, to adapt." When he'd first been told that he labelled it claptrap and threw his green jelly pot at the shrink. Edith would make a better patient than him, she already had the insight.

"I was afraid of that. No going back."

"No. Take it from a man with some experience of this road: it's one way."

"Even for learner drivers?"

Anthony chuckled, "Even then."

Edith peeked at him and smiled. She sat back in the chair with a sigh, leant her head against the wall and stretched out like a cat in a patch of winter sunlight. Holding her arms straight up to the ceiling and pushing her legs out into the space in front and flexing her feet. She yawned without making an attempt to cover her mouth. Even with dark, angry circles under her eyes, and blotchy cheeks from the emotional vacillations of the past few hours, she was still the single most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.

She repeated, to herself more than to him, "She's awake. At least she's awake."

"I'm so glad Edith." He wanted to put his hand on her knee, give it a comforting squeeze, but she was on the wrong side of him for that, he'd have to sit up and twist, bring his left arm across his body. By the time he'd done all that the moment would pass.

Sure enough, she stood, "I need coffee. Come with me?"

He nodded and they took a slow meander through the hallways to the vending machines. The hospital seemed brighter for Edith's good news. Where before he'd seen the sick and the sad, now he saw happiness and life. The walls were white and shining instead of dull grey, and the floors positively sparkled. Even the coffee seemed drinkable.

They sat on a bench in the garden of the small courtyard at the front of the hospital. The sun was just wrestling through the darkness and the night sky was a lightening navy blue. A few birds chirped and the breeze was pleasantly bracing.

After a while he realised she was staring at him, as though he was an alien landed from another universe.

He glanced down at his jumper, wondering if he'd spilt something, absently he touched his face and smoothed back his hair. Everything was in order.

"What?" He asked.

"A helicopter landed at Locksley." She blinked and shook her head, as if she was only just realising what had transpired thirty-six hours earlier. "A helicopter bought us here."

"Yes." 

She put her coffee onto the pavement beneath the bench and stood up, "You got me a helicopter."

"The pilot owed me a favour."

"Then you flew to London and arranged a car to get us here." she cast her hand towards the hospital building.

"It was nothing."

"It was not nothing! All that way!"

"It's not so very far."

"Anthony. It's 350 miles."

He sighed, "It felt like less."

Her eyes flashed with the reflected light from the windows behind them, "And you stayed. You slept on hard plastic chairs and drank vile coffee and ate stale sandwiches and greasy lasagna. You played chess with me and vanquished Mary!"

"I just did what anyone would do." He said, to his feet.

"No." She shook her head, "No. You sell yourself far too short Sir Anthony Strallan. No one would do all that for me."

He answered quickly, too quickly to school himself down to expressions of moderation, "Everyone else is a fool then."

They held each other's gaze and she whispered again, "You stayed with me."

He crossed his arms, except, of course, he didn't, his left folded over his chest and gripped on to his right. "I - You -" He exhaled and shrugged, "You needed someone."

 _I wanted that someone to be me._

"I did. Thank you."

It was too difficult to look at her now, when presented with this ridiculous list of his actions. Everything had seemed so sensible, so necessary, at the time. He was embarrassed and recoiled from it, instinctively he opted for self-protection, "I have to go back to Locksley."

It was precisely what he meant to say. And precisely what he didn't want.

With a juddering deep breath, he looked up at her. She was biting her bottom lip, her forehead creased.

He nearly begged her: _Ask me to stay._ _Make me stay._

Instead, she nodded and smiled with no warmth, "Hotels don't renovate themselves."

Relief washed over him, followed swiftly by disappointment.

"Alas, they do not."

"Of course." She said, solemnly, "Sybil won't be out of hospital for a couple of weeks."

"No. I suspected as much."

"So –"

" _So_ –"

He knew what this was. It was goodbye. Such a momentous moment, yet so inauspicious, as life's momentous moments had a tendency to be. This was not a feature film, or a scene in some novel. In this little garden, Anthony's world undertook a gargantuan shift. People in the busy, noisy hospital corridor behind them streamed past, utterly oblivious to his trauma, having to let go of this sparkling young woman.

He coughed away the sudden threat of tears. That was his cue, if ever he needed one, to retreat, and quickly. A better man would've kissed her or whispered some sweet nothing. But he wasn't a better man, he didn't know how to do any of that, or how he'd stop if he tried.

Lamely he reached out his hand and squeezed her on the arm, just above the elbow, "Take care of yourself, Edith."

Then he found his legs were moving and he was on the street and in a taxi and at the train station, wishing he could go back but knowing he wasn't brave enough.


	25. Chapter 25

_A/N I am so, so sorry for the delay. The next chapter is very nearly finished, I promise, and a usual posting schedule should (!) resume. Thank you all for the reviews. I cannot explain how much I appreciate them._

Edith picked her way through Bloomsbury farmers' market. Cradling a bunch of peach roses, a selection of tulips and holding a potted orchid, she dodged the crowds, trying to protect the delicate heads of her floral charges.

The weeks spent at Locksley were so quiet, so peaceful, she'd forgotten how busy life in the city could be. And how loud. The fruit stall trader hollered, "Two for one mangoes! Peaches for pennies!" directly at her, his deep East End cadence blasting through her senses, as she handed over the change for a bunch of grapes. When she'd returned to the British Library she was shocked by the queues and the crowds, and annoyed when the books she wanted were already taken. Solitary use of the archive had spoiled her for the realities of life as an academic in a big city – source wars.

Everything she'd once blithely accepted as the cost of life in the nation's capital – stale air, packed tube trains and people, people _everywhere_ – now caused her skin to itch.

There was a moment on the Central Line platform at Bank, as the train screeched an unholy chorus juddering to a complete stop, when she had to clench her fists tightly to her sides to stop herself from screaming in frustration. Because, for all the people, for all the masses of warm bodies pressing around her; Edith was lonely. Bone-achingly lonely. Not for company; there was plenty of that. She was lonely for Anthony.

Every time she turned around there was a glimpse of blonde hair or a blue eye belonging to some other person. But for a fleeting moment, her heart soared to see him again, only to crash straight back when the features belonged to someone else. She dreamt of his voice. Of chess games and driving lessons. Or of him inside her, thick and long, finishing what they started the night she banked the car in the north field.

A part of her had walked out of that hospital door with him and now she keened for it, ached and thrashed to be whole again. A caged bird in the middle of a beautiful forest.

It was worse now that Sybil was home. At first, when she was simply 'out of the woods' but still in a 'serious condition', as the doctor put it, there was ample distraction. The Crawley family worked through the situation in shifts – one person or two at the hospital, someone with Tom, making sure he ate and washed and didn't go mad, and one with baby Sybil ("Men name children after themselves all the time.", Sybil had declared, "why not women too?"). There was much to be done and very little time to think about Anthony, or Locksley, or the strange turn her life had taken when she decided to run away and discover the origin of Pearson's quote.

Now, Sybil was home, well on the road to recovery and Sybie was healthy and settling nicely into a routine. The trauma had cocooned them all, and now they could emerge back into the real world, shell shocked and uncertain.

It had so nearly been the end. The world was a hair's breadth away from altering irrevocably, from becoming somewhere new, somewhere scary. They had danced on the head of a pin and flirted with the edge and all without warning. It was the first time Edith had experienced one of those shifts, it wouldn't be the last, this she knew. Life was random. Life was short. All she could think about was getting back to Anthony.

It dawned on her all at once, as she pushed the spare key into Sybil and Tom's front door: she was in love with Anthony Strallan. She stood and stared at the lock before laughing manically, the sound echoing around the empty corridor.

Love should be a good thing. The best thing. But it was three weeks since he'd left the hospital and amidst texts from Thomas, emails from Anna and a concerned phone call from Mrs Hughes, there was nothing from Anthony.

In spite of all her promises to herself she'd gone and fallen in love for the first time with possibly the most inaccessible man she'd ever met.

"What's so funny?" Called Tom, as she stepped into the hall.

"Oh, nothing."

Tom wore Sybie in a sling across his front, the pale pink dome of her head and tuft of unkempt brown hair peeked over the top of the magenta fabric. He took the bag of grapes and the potted orchid.

Edith put the flowers on the kitchen table, disentangled her bag from around her neck and pushed her shoes off her feet. Kissing Tom on the cheek, she looked between them and smoothed two fingers across the brow of her slumbering niece. Gently she brushed a kiss into the mop of hair. She lingered to take in the smell. Warmth and cotton and innocence. It bought a lump to her throat. How different it might all have been.

"She likes a nap after a big meal, just like her Pa." Tom whispered.

"The formula's working out then?"

"Two thirds of a bottle for lunch, like a dream."

"How is Sybil?"

"Bearing up. It's just - " He leant against the kitchen counter, "she's sort of - I mean, she's sick and she's stuck in bed I know, but she's -"

He hesitated and Edith filled in the gap, "grumpy?"

Her sister was young and active and full of life. The bedrest ordered by her various doctors did not sit well with her natural constitution.

"Yes!" He was relieved, she suspected, to have an ally in his analysis, "When do you think I can start calling her out on that?"

"She's only been home a week. She probably has at least another week of grace."

Tom slumped, "A week?!"

"She was hit by a car Tom, she's entitled to feel hard done by and you'll just have to take the punches for a little while longer. You remember the 'in sickness, in health' bit of the vows?"

"You think this is what they were getting at?"

Edith threaded her arm through the bag containing the grapes, picked up the vase she'd filled with the flowers and kissed her brother in law on the cheek, "I do."

There was no possible way Sybil could complain about the comforts Tom had arranged for her at home. When Edith pictured the beds of Barbara Cartland or Elizabeth Taylor, she imagined they'd be like this. Soft Egyptian cotton sheets, mounds and mounds of duvet. Large, fluffy pillows, luxurious faux fur throws and in the midst of it all, Sybil, perched like an angel atop a cloud of lofty thread count.

"More flowers!" Sybil exclaimed as she entered the room.

"Yes. They make a room infinitely less miserable."

Sybil seemed to take that as a cue to list all the miseries the flowers could not possible alleviate. Sitting in the chair by her sister's bedside, Edith practiced what she had preached to Tom. She allowed her sister to be sad, to be frustrated and to be grumpy. The novelty of having her alive and nearly well meant she could weather a mood or two.

"Mary came by this morning. She talked about work – " Sybil rolled her eyes, "A. Lot. And Matthew, and how difficult it is to live with someone else." She mocked a stage whisper, "She has to share!"

"Heaven forbid!"

"Then, just before she left, she stared intently at me –"

"Oh?" Edith furrowed her brow.

"And she said, ' _You know, Sybil, I'm very glad you pulled through_.'" Sybil snorted, "Like it's World War One and I'm some injured lieutenant in a field hospital and she's the visiting Colonel!"

"What did you say?!"

"Nothing, I didn't get the chance, she fled the room so fast she was practically a blur."

"You actually managed to break through her surface of rock and lo! There is a heart underneath."

"Apparently."

"And all it took was a near fatal car accident."

"If only we'd known earlier." She deadpanned.

Even in the face of awful trauma and bodily injury Sybil's easy humour had survived. All at once Edith was wildly, frantically grateful that her sister was all right.

"Don't look at me like that!"

"Like what?" Edith asked.

"Like I'm some precious fluffy rare unicorn. I just want to get back to normal and that'll be nigh on impossible if everyone around here keeps handling me with kid gloves like I'm a medical miracle. I was in an accident. I didn't die. Can everyone just move on?"

In that spirit, Edith leant back in her chair and lifted her feet to rest on the end of Sybil's bed, "Fine. Just so you know, that means I'm going to go out there and tell Tom he can start telling you off when you act like a –"

"Bitch?" Offered Sybil.

"Bad patient." Responded Edith, tactfully.

She shifted on her pillow nebulous, "Good." She took a grape with a thinly veiled grimace, "So, what did you do this morning?"

"Trip to the library. A bit of shopping." _Realised I'm madly in love with an infuriating man._

"Syb." She stared at her hands, too afraid and too guilty to make eye contact, "I have to go back to Yorkshire. My new research is there and I have to finish my thesis."

Silence from the bed. She darted a look up at her sister, she wore a knowing smile and was nodding, "I know. The farmer's there too."

"The farmer?"

"The man at the hospital. The man who flew you to the hospital."

"He didn't fly me." Edith said, as if that was, in any respect, the point, "He just arranged the helicopter." She stood, unable to sit down, as if she'd been caught out, "How do you know about that?"

"Tom told me. Mary told me too, she said he's your boyfriend."

"He's not." She denied it too quickly and Sybil arched an eyebrow, "Come on, you really think Mary would know anything about my private life?"

"She said he was fawning over you."

Mary had a peculiar definition for the word 'fawning'. Edith realized in the days after Anthony had left that she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he'd touched her whilst they'd been at the hospital.

"I'm in love with him."

Sybil's jaw dropped at that and her eyebrows shot into her hairline, "Really?"

She nodded, "And I don't want to chase or pressure him. But I have to go and see if there's anything there."

"If you love him, you absolutely do."

She asked Sybil the question she was afraid to ask herself, "You don't think I'm chasing another guy who doesn't really want me?"

Her sister laughed, "Edie, he chartered a helicopter to the hospital?"

"Yes."

"And flew down with you."

"Yes."

"You think Michael Gregson would've done that?"

"No."

"Me either."

"He's not an easy man." She tried to find a way to explain. To encapsulate Anthony's character in a few simple descriptors, but she couldn't manage it and it didn't really matter. He wasn't an easy man but she loved him anyway.

"The most worthwhile people rarely are, Edie."

"You're not angry with me for leaving you?"

Sybil sat forwards, "You're joking? Edie, no! You have to go and live your life. I love having you here but I'll be fine. Tom's mother is coming in two days and threatening to bring his grandmother. I am going to smothered by loving Irish bosoms and force fed hearty food. I'll miss you, of course, but I am the furthest thing possible from angry."

Edith spent the night on Tom and Sybil's couch, waking up with Sybie to deal with one last night of feeding and changing.

The next morning, she kissed everyone goodbye and took a train and two buses to Locksley village. She dropped into the pub to see Thomas and left some of her work papers at the library. Thomas tried to ply her with chewy red wine and leery anecdotes and Mrs Hughes offered tea and cakes, but she made her apologies to both.

There was only one place she wanted to be and only one person she wanted to see. Her head and her heart were so full of him by the time she reached the end of Locksley's curving driveway, she thought she might come apart at the seams with it, all the love would simply dissipate uselessly into the crisp winter air. That wouldn't do. She jogged the short distance to the front door.


	26. Chapter 26

_A/N: Thank you, thank you so much for the reviews. They keep me writing, they really do. You're wonderful people._

If he could, Anthony would have rented a car back to Locksley. Put on Dylan or some James Taylor and wallowed on the lonely road. But no rental car company catered to a man with only one working arm.

In the past he'd have been annoyed he couldn't do as he wanted. Today there was a passive acceptance. These were the cards he'd been dealt. A broken body and a beleaguered brain. Perhaps he'd even start wearing his arm in a sling.

Instead of driving, he did the journey Edith described to him over chess a few weeks earlier. Train to Skipton and then not one, but two buses. She was right, as ever: it was dreadful. He made a mental note to do as she suggested and budget for a coach to bring guests direct to Locksley from the train station for big events.

Several weeks slipped by in a blur. There was a lot to be done and Anthony did it all. He finished his dry stone wall. Shopping took place for new flooring, lighting and crockery. One Saturday was taken up with a visit to a bespoke wallpaper printer, accompanied by a bemused Bates and a delighted Anna. Charlie and he discussed how to better manage the lambing and the possibility of a farm shop. He dodged all of Anthony's irrelevant questions about Mrs Hughes. Maud telephoned periodically with ominous warnings about bottom lines and budgets and cash flow.

For all the doing, for all the achieving, Anthony had the curious sense he was simply existing. Fully-functioning, but not really living.

On several occasions – passing the library, up in the North field, catching sight of the chess set he'd hidden away on a shelf in the snug – he decided to get straight into his car and go back. To drive down to London and seek out Edith. What then he didn't know, but for those moments, it was the best idea in history, the only good idea he'd ever had in his sorry life and it was simply the only thing to be done – he couldn't go on without doing it. His heart beat faster and his lungs swelled with the possibility of it all. Then he came crashing down. An addict from a high.

 _Edith is lovely and young and clever and beautiful and better off without you._

So he did everything, but he didn't get in his car and go back to London. And his life of abeyance continued, as if a great rolling droplet of tree sap had caught him and set hard into fixed amber.

"Can't I do the hammering?" moaned Bates, flinching as Anthony whacked another of the stakes into the ground.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because if I miss the target you risk _one_ of your two arms. If you miss, I might lose the only one I've got."

"I'm sure that's discriminatory."

Anthony took aim and slammed the head of the mallet down again, the wood speared through the turf with a tell tale crunch.

"Can I at least do the next one? I think –"

Beside him he was vaguely aware that Bates was continuing to talk. But it was just a distant sound, an annoyance far at the edge of his oratory periphery. Instead, he was drowned out by the buzzing in his own ears. Edith was standing in the frame of the French doors, wearing his coat and smiling across the lawn.

He pushed past Bates's hand, holding out another post and the line to tie around it. He dropped the mallet and pulled off his thick glove with his teeth and started walking towards her. She did the same. Golden hair catching in the wind, whipped into a frothy mass about her head.

They met in the middle of the dancefloor, or what would be the middle of the dancefloor in a matter of months. Blushing, Edith examined her feet, clad in those ridiculous insubstantial flat shoes she insisted on wearing; they were sinking into the grass, patches of moisture gathering around the toes. A momentary impulse to chastise was quickly squashed, because now he was here, sinking into the hazel warmth of her eyes, he didn't want her to return to dry land. He didn't want her to go anywhere ever again.

There was a lump in his throat, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to talk around it. Only with her return did he truly appreciate how he'd longed for it. Everything had been wrong, as though he'd been walking about wearing someone else's shoes.

"You put your arm in a sling."

For a moment he wondered what she was talking about, he'd forgotten all about his blasted arm. He croaked out some words, "Oh – I – yes. You were right. It's better when I'm working." Briefly, he wondered if she'd remember their argument in the car. He could recite every word she'd ever said to him.

"I told you so." She gave him a wry, toothy smile which lit up her dewy pale skin. His fingers flexed with a desire to trace the circles of her cheeks.

"That you did. How is Sybil?"

"Good. On the mend, being nursed by Tom and a gaggle of his relatives. It seems to take the form of feeding her large quantities of stew."

"Well, they are Irish." She chuckled, "And the baby?"

"Sybil Junior, you mean? Sybie, as we all call her. She's perfection."

He nodded, "And your parents?"

 _Why was he making small talk?_ All his hopes had coalesced into the one single wish that she would come back to Locksley, and now she had and he was asking about her parents. He didn't give even one flying fig about her parents. Why were they talking at all? If he was putting his mouth to use and Edith was doing the same, he thought of only one task they should be undertaking. He should've marched her and her sodden, ridiculous shoes back up to the terrace, pressed her back against the wall of the house and kissed her silly.

But he hadn't done that. He hadn't done anything. Or said anything, not anything that mattered. Now he was afraid, because she hadn't either.

"They're fine. Back to normal now that Sybil's scare is over. Mary too, and Matthew. Everyone in the Crawley clan is just fine."

"Right." He nodded, repeatedly, like one of those daft dog ornaments on the dashboard of a car, "We're setting out the footprint for the extension." He turned to show her, hating himself all the while. Pointing to the far corner of the proposed structure, he said, "you see over there by where Bates is standing –"

"Hullo Edith!" Bates called out with a wave. She returned the greeting.

"That'll be the east wall and it comes around, as you see, along the blue line between the posts there and there, angled at the corner and then turns there, to run parallel with the house, so that'll be the –"

"North wall?"

Embarrassment heated his cheeks. Utterly stupid to be explaining some wooden posts and a bit of blue wiring in the back garden, "Yes." He said sheepishly, "You get the idea."

"I do."

He turned back to her with less than no notion about what he should do next. Or, rather, what he might have the courage to do next. The notions, particularly when she licked her bottom lip like that, came thick and fast.

"They're going to pour the concrete foundations before Christmas, if the weather holds."

"Right."

"It'll be cold, but if the ground is cold that's actually better. But you don't want snow, obviously, which should be all right because apparently our chances of snow this side of February are less than twenty percent."

And now he was talking about the weather. To this woman who he'd told about his father, and the accident and his arm. To this woman who he'd kissed – intimately - and who'd done the same to him. It seemed extraordinary that he could be getting something so right, so very wrong.

"You can't bank on the weather in these parts, of course, we never do know what we're going to get. They say it's not going to rain and then it p –"

"Anthony?" She interrupted, wide-eyed, "I don't want to talk about rain."

"No, of course not."

Glancing over his shoulder, she stepped towards him and whispered, "Anthony, are you even a little pleased to see me?"

"What?" He said, stupidly. Could she not see it? He was fizzing with the joy of seeing her, he was surprised his skin wasn't bubbling with it.

"Why do you think I came back?"

"I – _er_ \- Your thesis. The archive." Brilliant, now he was incapable even of full sentences.

Her jaw stiffened, "Yes, that. Any other reason do you think? Any other incentives to leave my brand new niece and my unwell sister?"

"I – I –" He stuttered and to his dismay she pivoted on her heel and squelched a path back to the house.

It had taken him less than ten minutes to ruin everything. A record, even for him.

He sprinted after her, took the terrace steps two at a time and blocked her path back into the house. She folded her arms across her chest, "Excuse me."

"No." He pushed his hand through his hair and tried to express what he felt, "Please just let me – let me try – don't frown at me like that."

"I'm sorry?" She raised her brows.

"Look, I'm no good at this. So you have to give me a minute, or several, before you start going off in a huff because I don't quite come up to scratch straight away."

She frowned at that and started to argue, "A huff! I hardly think –"

He interrupted, "Edith –" He took a couple of calm, steadying breaths, "I've never been so pleased to see anyone in my entire life, all right? Except that ordinary platitude, with its ordinary words doesn't cover it. I'm not _pleased_. I don't _appreciate_ that you're here. I'm not _content_ or _satisfied_ with your presence. That's not it at all." He darted her a look, "God, I really am no bloody good at this. How do I – I can't -" The words seemed to fly from him like startled crows out of a tree, he groped for something approaching accurate, "I'm – I'm _elated_ to see you." He sighed at how inadequate it all seemed, she still looked so displeased, as well she might, "I have missed you Edith. Every day, I have missed you."

Unfurling her arms, her cheeks flushed that lovely side of pink and she nodded at her feet, "good then."

At that moment Bates appeared at his shoulder, "how's your sister Edith?" 

"On the mend."

"Excellent news. And excellent to have you back."

"Is it?" She asked, quizzically.

"God yes. Sir Anthony –" He jostled up against his shoulder, "has been a nightmare without you."

"Bates!" He said, only to be, predictably, ignored, as if he wasn't standing there at all.

"Has he?" Edith's eyes darted from his face back to his architect, soon to be his former architect if he did not cease his talking.

"Honestly. Moping. Forlorn. Disconsolate. Like living with a teenager."

"All right, thank you, John. I'll see you inside."

"You're welcome." He slapped him on the shoulder, "but you don't need to see me inside, Sir Anthony, I think we're done working for the day. Why don't you take this charming woman out for a drink, maybe a meal?"

With that suggestion, he winked at Edith, and laughed as he went inside, leaving them quite alone on the terrace.

"What are you smiling at?"

"You moped?" Edith asked.

"I would hardly call it –"

"Forlorn, according to Bates."

"What does Bates know about anything?"

"Disconsolate, I believe he said."

"Yes, well. I'd got used to having you around the place."

"You missed me."

"I did."

"That's a shame." She smacked her lips and shook her head, and made those beautiful eyes big and round, "because I didn't miss you one little bit." She went back into the dining room.

"Edith –" He laughed her name, and felt a curl of warmth in his stomach, like she was good drink on a cold day, the best Scotch, one aged for fifty years.

She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled, "It was a relief to be rid of you really."

"Edith!" He reached for her hand and took it in his and couldn't quite believe he'd done it. But he didn't let go, instead, he laced their fingers together and pulled a little on her arm so she turned to face him.

"You're an aggravating man." She stroked her thumb across his knuckles, tracing up and down over the ridges

"And you're an infuriating woman." Bravely, and yet with far too much caution, he kissed the corner of her lips and then, after she tilted her head just so, and rose up on her tip-toes to meet him, on her mouth too.


	27. Chapter 27

_A/N: Thank you so, so, so much for the reviews._

 _Sorry for the delay, next chapter very nearly done, I promise._

They went to a small restaurant two villages down. Perhaps he'd been a little afraid he'd imagined his entire relationship with this woman. That they didn't actually get along. That they weren't really friends. As they got into the car, he worried that maybe they'd have nothing at all to say to one another. The concern dissipated in moments. It was all easy conversation and gentle humour. Anthony felt charmed, he was charmed. Light as a feather, curling and spinning in a shaft of warm light. He barely noticed when Edith pulled his plate to her side of the table and cut up his steak. As she pushed it back, in the space where once he might have felt a twist of shame, or a stab of anger, there was only a bubble of warmth.

By the time they got back to Locksley the winter's evening had drawn in around the house. A blanket of inky darkness punctuated by twinkling white dots.

It wasn't bedtime, but Anthony wanted to go to bed. As ever, he was reluctant to say it. Perhaps that wasn't Edith's intention in coming back. Perhaps it was too much, too fast. Their last encounter might only have been a few weeks ago, but it felt like a lifetime, two lifetimes.

Edith stood, illuminated by the moonlight, staring up at the vast sky. He stared at her, equally as vast and unfathomable and full of possibilities as all the universe above them. Then she lowered her gaze, smiled at him, took his hand and drew him inside. In companionable silence they walked, not to her bedroom, but to his. She waited for him to open his door, which he did, and then she went inside and he felt he had conquered the heavens and all the planets and the skies and stars. They were all in the palm of his hand. As he shut the door behind them, he was king of the universe.

"Gosh, it's cold." She said, bringing her hands around her torso and rubbing warmth into her arms.

"Sorry, I'll do the fire."

It was a respite from all the anticipation, from the thrill of having her here. He bent down and concentrated on this most mundane of tasks – balled up newspaper, intricate stick lattice, several hearty lumps of coal - all the while aware that she lingered behind him, moving around his room, amongst his things. He took a deep breath as he struck the match and set it to the paper, he fanned the flames with a slow exhale and, satisfied the fire had caught, he rose.

In the corner of the room Edith was folding his pyjamas, which this morning he'd discarded onto the floor without any more thought, not imagining this scene even for one moment. She picked up his dressing gown last of all, she bought the collar to her nose and breathed in. She glanced over at him and lowered the garment abruptly, arranging it on the back of a nearby chair. At the window she paused by the statue of a horse mid-way through jumping a fence.

"Can you ride?"

"Compulsory when I was a boy, but I never liked it." All that distance from the ground had made him feel queasy. A car on the other hand had never given him any cause for concern. Funny, that.

"I owned a racehorse with a couple of my colleagues at Sachs, a long time ago now – _My View_ – it won a race or too and that's the owner's trophy from…" He couldn't remember.

She filled in the blank, reading from the little silver plaque on the wooden base, "Ascot, 19th November 2002."

Behind him, he felt the fire catch to the kindling and lick up the coals, a sudden burst of heat. Edith carried on her journey around his bedroom. She ran four fingers along the edge of the bed, leaving parallel furrows in his cream sheets. She took a moment to admire the Tiffany lamp on his bedside table, adjusting the shade so it sat at a neat angle. The books beside it provoked a sniff. A McEwan. And a Le Carre.

She plucked the final book from the pile and gestured the offending object in her direction, "Not Jeffrey Archer too!"

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's all so very expected."

"What do you mean?!" 

The corner of her mouth bounced with amusement, "White, male, upper class."

"Really?"

She nodded, as if she was wise and knew it all.

He smirked, "For tomorrow I shall dig out my Margaret Atwood collection. And perhaps _Americanah_. I have some early Carol Ann Duffy somewhere, from long before she was Laureate - controversial stuff."

She swallowed and blinked and he was delighted to have subverted her expectations. Then it dawned on him. _Tomorrow_.

He stepped forward, away from the warmth on the back of his thighs and opened his mouth to correct the impression that he had any expectations about this or them. The firelight escaped into the space he'd created, and spread across the floor and up her limbs, flickering in the glassy reflection of her eyes. Turning her skin a physalis orange.

God, he wanted her. Right here in his bedroom. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. He cleared his throat and sat on the edge of the bed saying nothing, but gesturing for her to continue perusing the detritus of his life.

At the wardrobe she paused and turned, seeking his permission. He nodded. The stiff wooden door rattled open and hangers tinkled.

"You have the most extensive collection of arran jumpers I have ever seen."

"That's because I am the only farmer you know."

"Fair point." She continued, "You own a checked shirt in every colour of the rainbow."

"I am a cheerful fellow. I like to reflect it in my clothing." She snorted at that.

"There are Bermuda shorts in here." She closed the door slightly and poked her head around the outside to peer at him, "Do you get your legs out in the summer?"

"Terribly risqué, but yes, for a few weeks of the year it can be quite hot, even in Yorkshire."

She waggled her eyebrows dramatically and said, "I should like to see that."

"What, the warm weather?"

"Yes." She deadpanned.

A moment later she squealed, and took out a suit, thrusting it in his direction, " _What_ is this?"

"White tie."

"Like Fred Astaire!"

"Well, I mean, I didn't wear it to do a tap routine. I went to a few Lord Mayor's Banquets."

"In this, you would look…"

"Ridiculous?" He offered.

"Devastating." It was a wistful word, said almost on a sigh. She didn't hold his gaze, instead she flushed and swiped absentmindedly at non-existent dust on the front of his tails.

The bureau contained various photographs and she lifted each of them up, examining the occupants of the various moments in time. Maud and he on holiday two years ago, walking through the bubbling waves at Woolacombe, Libby was behind the camera, ill but not diagnosed. It was a hopeful day. There were several of his mother. Charlie and Mrs Hughes on their wedding day, the Locksley gang around them. Bates wasn't looking at the camera but over at Anna, it would still take two months for them to go on a date.

"Is this you?" Edith asked, picking up a slightly tarnished silver frame. She sat beside him on the bed and passed him the frame. His seventeen-year-old self smiled up at them. That Anthony leant on the estate's battered old Land Rover, arms crossed, squinting in the sun and laughing.

"It is."

"You look so young."

"I was young."

"And so tiny!"

"Hardly tiny, not quite six foot yet. I grew two inches between my seventeenth and nineteenth birthdays. Had all sorts of respiratory issues."

"You've filled out too."

He turned to look at her and tilted his head, "Are you calling me fat?"

"No." Her tongue flicked out across her bottom lip, "Just, large."

"Large!"

"Solid." She brushed a thumb over the dusty glass and whispered with a shrug, "I like it."

She'd said words to that effect before, in their last encounter – complimented his broadness. Perhaps she meant what she said. _There was a thought_.

"That's my Grandmother." He pointed at the woman walking towards the rear of the car, trailing leg and arm caught in a blur of motion. "It was my first driving lesson and she was eager to get on. My Mother cooed and fussed and wanted a photograph of her growing boy, but my Grandmother had no patience for it."

"Scary looking."

"She was scary, but in a good way - fierce."

She faced him and held up the picture frame next to his face, eyes flicking from young Anthony, to - there was no avoiding it - _old_ Anthony.

"What are you doing?"

"A comparison."

"Christ woman, I wish you wouldn't."

She stood and put the picture back on the side, saying, "I usually prefer things from the past, as you know." Leaning back on the bureau, her eyes searched his face for a moment, "But not on this occasion. I'd choose this Sir Anthony Strallan –" she pointed at him, "every single time."

He blinked and shook his head, "The boy has a lot to recommend him, Edith, like any young man. He's full of energy and optimism." She walked across the floor towards him and he swallowed, "Youth. No baggage from a life already lived." She stood in front of him, "Edith, he has two working arms." She brushed at the lock of hair curled across his forehead, swept her fingers across down the side of his face and across his cheek. Magic in those fingers. The way they caused his skin to prickle. If she took her hands away she could weave webs with the spindles of his desire. Snare him. No need, though, he was already caught. He burned with it and whispered, desperate, "Do you really want this?"

"Yes."

He shut his eyes. _Thank God_.

After a moment her fingers closed around his hand and urged him to stand up. Edith stepped into his chest and reached behind his neck. Her hands worked under the fabric of his sling and against the skin of his neck. In slow increments she loosened the knot of the fabric. Her lips blew heavy warm breaths against his cheek, he tilted his head slightly to brush them with his own. He came a little closer into her and kissed behind her ear, revelling in the sound from the back of her throat and the goosebumps he left behind.

"If someone had told me about this advantage, I'd have put the damned arm in the sling a lot sooner."

She grinned, "Duck, please."

He bowed his head and she pulled the loop of fabric over, supporting his arm as she lowered it to hang at his side.

After that, she stepped away, and he had the urge to grab her back. Until, that was, she took off her top, revealing a lacy bra, the colour of the dusty peach roses she liked so much. It was silly to be so aroused by the sight. He'd seen her naked, he'd seen all of her, but it was a distant dream; the night they'd shared before. He'd been so certain it would never happen again. And now, her jeans followed the top onto the floor around her feet.

How on earth did he survive this last time? There was a real risk his heart would simply beat its way through his chest cavity and land uselessly on the floor at their feet. He gawped, she was more beautiful. It shouldn't have been possible, but there she was, clear as day: an improvement on perfection.

"Anthony?" She folded her arms across her breasts, "Perhaps you'd like to take off some clothes too?"

"I – I think – yes. _Yes_."

She rolled her eyes, and together they set about making themselves completely naked.


	28. Chapter 28

_A/N Thank you, thank you for the reviews. It's so wonderful getting them and they encourage me to keep writing. I am very grateful to everyone for taking the time to read and review. I hope this lives up to (s)expectations._

 _Very, very M rated. Reader discretion advised, scenes of a sexual nature below._

They kissed a while, seemingly everywhere except where one was supposed to kiss in these situations. Perhaps that kiss behind the ear had set him off, he'd so enjoyed how her skin had rippled and that little hitch in her breath. He wondered what other sounds he could coax from her lovely throat. It was a giggle when he brushed her earlobe, an impatient moan when he caught the soft curve at the side of her breast and a sigh when he counted out each of her ribs.

The explorations she undertook revealed that he was ticklish below his naval, so much so that a kiss there caused his cock to kick up in response. At the soft triangular divot at the base of his neck her lips elicited prickles of sensation which grew and spread across his body like a breeze through meadow grass in spring.

At his scar she paused her tour and, with the tip of one finger, touched the end, where it shaped across his abdomen like the unfurling end of an ancient scroll.

They explained after the accident that it was a tricky injury because of how the gear shaft had splintered and come through the front of the car, stopped only by his unfortunate presence in the passenger seat. Evidently, sorting it out had taken some considerable effort and his surgeon with a preening, smug smile pronounced the scar 'a masterpiece'. Anthony had wanted to throttle him.

"Does it hurt?" She asked, her eyes full of concern.

"Not any more."

In a matter of moments her eyes were filled with mischief instead of concern, "Sensitive?"

Her tongue was tracing the length of it before he had an opportunity to answer. He bucked, quite involuntarily, and gasped, replying, "A-a-pparently."

She flopped down next to him and their legs tangled together. Her smile was victorious, which was strange, because that must make him the victory. He palmed one of her delightful teardrop breasts. Her back arched into his touch.

"Anthony?"

He bent his head to taste the nipple. She moaned and then pushed his chin up with her finger, "Anthony?"

He stilled, concerned, "What is it?"

"Just, that - I – I don't have any condoms."

He squeezed his eyes shut. _Idiot_. Of course, he didn't have any either, because he didn't expect to have sex again. He didn't expect to see Edith again. Buying contraception would've been the height of presumption, of hubris - just inviting the sun to set his wings aflame, and he'd already had his fill of careening towards the earth.

"But –" He looked at her, she flushed, "I'm on the pill and I got myself tested after Gregson. In a fit of pique, really, because we always used condoms, but I did anyway and I'm healthy."

There was a beat before he realised that he finally had something to thank the damned accident for. He replied, whispering, almost afraid it wouldn't be true if he spoke it too loudly, "So am I. Christ, Edith, _so am I_." The words emerged as a prayer of thanks – in this, if nothing else, he was healthy. "After the accident they tested for everything. Presented the results to me as if it was a comfort – 'sorry about the arm, Sir Anthony, but look, at least you don't have chlamydia'. Thank God they did!"

"So we can… "

"We can."

There was that victory smile again.

She curled herself into him, her breasts pressed against his chest, and kissed him. He traced the peaks and valleys of her bodily profile with his hand, rise of breast, dip of waist, the valley between her thighs and cupped her mound before finding her wet. His erection strained where it was trapped between them, annoyed at its exclusion. He swirled the moisture around her clitoris and she gasped into his lips, " _Yes_."

This should have been a moment to enjoy, Edith flat on her back, panting at his ministrations, back arching and pale skin flushing. Her nipples perfect points of arousal. And he was the one conducting it all.

But it was ruined by his realisation he couldn't continue. The weight of his body was resting on his right side, the shoulder was becoming unbearably sore, begging to be stretched, and his damaged arm was folded uncomfortably underneath his body. The muscles in his lower back were starting to squeal with the referral pain. All this from a few touches. He wasn't even on top of her yet. How was he ever going to accomplish that? He couldn't, there wasn't the strength in his upper body. A lump rose up in his throat, and he heard the blare of a distant car horn and the screech of tires on tarmac. He had to stop.

He rolled to the side of the bed, away from her beautiful naked body and those expressive eyes. He held his head in his hand and looked down at his toes, curling them into the carpet.

 _Useless_. He balled his hand into a fist. _Worse than useless_. He was no victory. He was defeat itself. A soldier broken by the war.

"Anthony? What is it?" Her hand was on his shoulder, he turned his head and kissed her fingers.

"I can't do this."

"All evidence to the contrary!" His erection was flagging as the reality of his incapacity dawned, but it hadn't gone away completely, with a naked Edith in the room there was little chance of that.

Before he met Edith he didn't even know he was capable of blushing, "I can't hold myself up. I'll end up lying on you like some bloody beached whale."

"Silly man." She whispered in his ear, took his lobe between her teeth. Then her thighs were either side of his and her breasts mere inches from his mouth. She kissed him full on the lips. He was painfully hard again. The inadequacies of his shattered body forgotten in a haze of lust and – perhaps even more potently – Edith herself.

"Missionary is not the only position, Anthony." Her whispers had become breathless. Then she lowered herself onto his cock and he was breathless too.

"Oh, Jesus, Edith."

She moaned his name, "Anthony. Anthony. _Anthony_."

She laughed and shifted her hips, "you feel –" The words were ragged and trailed off, and suddenly he was afraid he wasn't taking enough care. She was warm and wet and tight, but small too, and he was a large man. Tall and broad - substantial, as she'd observed earlier - with everything, he supposed, in proportion.

"Am I hurting you?" The words stuttered breathlessly into the shell of her ear.

Her head lolled onto his shoulder, she was taking in fortifying deep breaths. "Just enough."

" _Edith_." He pleaded, and pulled back to force her to look at him, "am I?"

"You feel wonderful Anthony." She flexed her hips and he groaned, "hard and thick."

The words, husky and needy, combined with the flex of hips, with a corresponding movement of the internal muscles – that alone, nearly did it. Heat flared up through his chest and into his face, embarrassment catching up to the arousal, the lust, the desire. They hadn't actually done anything yet. Did simply fitting inside a woman and then coming almost immediately even count as sex? Probably, but it was not what he wanted. Not with Edith. She deserved more than that.

"Don't – don't speak. Please, don't." He pleaded, "Not like that. I want to last. I'm not sure I'll last. I want to last."

That final bit emerged like a breathless prayer – _Iwanttolast_. His eyes were clamped shut, he couldn't look at her. One glance at those breasts, or their pointed nipples, or her eyes, with their tendency to droop slightly in pleasure, or the inviting notch in her collarbone, pointing to her heart, and further on, to other delights. If he looked down, he'd find her tender thighs wrapped about his waist, the delicious contours of her hips and stomach and her pubis. Her light blonde hair, just revealing the slight split of her soft, wet sex. No, he couldn't open his eyes. Just looking was likely to finish him off, her every aspect offered some different concupiscent vista.

"Anthony." She wrapped her hands about his neck and he felt her nipples against his chest. Not as easy to cease touching as it was to stop looking.

"Edith – Edith, I think – I can't – this will be quick."

"That's fine." Her voice was so laced with warmth he almost believed her.

"But you – and I – I want you to –" He pressed his mouth into her neck, and almost wanted to weep. He wanted her to come, to call his name, but he couldn't make that happen, not when he was already on the brink. The one hand he had was needed to brace their weight, either against her, or on the bed at his side. There was no way he could touch her, let alone touch her with any kind of finesse.

The press of her lips to his was fierce, her tongue was inside his mouth and when she pulled away he was gasping, and grasping, for the falling rope of his control.

She said into his lips - literally, he felt them move across his own - "Stop worrying about me. You inside me, you as a part of me, that's what I want." And as if to prove it, she rose up to the very end of his cock, and pushed back down again, heavily seated in his lap.

"Oh, fuck."

At some point after the accident, he'd become sceptical about taking people at their word. Fear, perhaps, that they'd prove to be wrong, or worse, lying and he'd have to manage the resulting disappointment. It was a not insignificant step to take Edith at her word, but this seemed as good a time as any to try and start.

"Christ, Edith, do that again."

She did, except this time, he thrust up to meet her. She gasped and swallowed and stuttered out a plea, "Again."

They managed four more thrusts, or rather, he managed four more. Then he was emptying into her with a shout. His knees quaked and he pressed his lips into her neck, moaned a sloppy kiss, as she clasped around him and urged him to every last moment of pleasure. An even more generous and thoughtful gesture, given that she had to be nowhere near taking her own.

The moments afterwards were bliss. Exhaustion had never felt so good. He fell back into the soft sheets taking Edith with him. Sweat gathered where their bodies touched. Perhaps if they were going to have sex there was no need to set a fire. Her hair matted to the back of her neck, he gathered it up and swept it to one side, freeing the skin to the fresh air. He petted at her, too tired to do anything else.

When the post-coital high began to wear off, the doubts crept back. That had surely been a terrible display. He'd all but rutted her like some horny stag, as if she was just an available warm body for him to use when in fact she was infinitely more than that.

He padded to the bathroom and ran a flannel under warm water. On his return to the bedroom she was precisely where she'd left him, lying in the middle of the bed, breathing heavily, an arm cast across her face like some despondent damsel. He tapped her leg, "Open please."

"What?" She lifted her arm from across her face as if it weighed a hundred pounds.

"Flannel."

"Oh." She parted her legs and sighed as he mopped her up, "Lovely, thank you."

This he could do, these ablutions. Here he could conduct himself competently. It kept him occupied, stopped him from spilling out a decade's worth of self-doubt. It would not add to his limited allure if he lamented his own inadequacies. Women liked confident men, if he remembered rightly.

Her hand cupped his cheek, "Anthony, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." He pitched the cloth into the laundry basket, "Nothing."

"Liar. You look as though you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. One might have hoped having sex for the first time in a decade might cheer a person up, not make them maudlin."

"I'm hardly maudlin."

She rolled her eyes, "For heaven's sake, come here." She yanked his arm and pulled him down onto the bed. Then she levered up and sat atop him. Naked. Acres and acres of creamy white skin, the space between her legs still warm from the flannel.

"I'm not sure I approve of being manhandled in this way." She shifted her position to tuck herself against his cock, which, by some miracle, had started to make its way to erect again. He cleared his throat and gripped her hip to encourage the pressure, "All right, I admit, it has some benefits."

"Tell me what's wrong." She said.

"I just –" He groaned, and covered his eyes rather than look at her, "I came, and you didn't." Rather optimistically, he asked "You didn't, did you?"

"No. I didn't." She wrapped her fingers around his hand and drew it away from his eyes, "But I meant what I said. I wanted to be with you, to have you inside me. It was remarkable."

He snorted, "I lasted thirty seconds."

She replied with a wry smile, "No! Nearer to a minute!"

"Christ."

"Anthony! Stop this. You hadn't had sex in seven years. I wasn't expecting Casanova levels of performance."

"I don't know whether that makes me feel better or worse."

"Next time you'll last longer. It will be better. You've made me come before - very, very well, I might add and I have no doubt you'll manage it again." She leant down and kissed him, first on the mouth, then on the neck, then just beneath his ear. She whispered, "You turn me on Sir Anthony Strallan, you make me wet and you have a magnificently large and thick velvet covered steel sex piston." His chest rumbled with laughter at that, "There will be many orgasms in my future, of this, I am sure. Stop worrying."

It was a cliché of the worst sort to call the woman sitting astride you, entirely naked, a Goddess. To put her on a pedestal, high atop a mountain as some superior being. But, in Edith's case, the cliché was the truth: she was superior. She could comfort, chastise and bolster all at the same time. She saw the best in him. In her there was a mix of intelligence, wit and beauty that was almost too good to be true. If he'd met her before, he'd have spent his life giving her the world. But he didn't. All they had was now and he decided at that moment to make the very most of it. To show her, as best he could, what a marvel she really was.

"How do you feel about making a start on that prediction?" He grasped her bottom and sunk his hand into the soft flesh there, pushing her towards his head.

"Anthony!" She exclaimed, but she was up on her knees with the momentum and securing her hands on the headboard, "What are you doing?!"

They would be quite the sight if someone should walk in, Edith peering down at his head where it emerged from between her legs.

"Guess."

" _Anthony_."

"I want to taste you."

"You'll be tasting more than me." She flushed a delightful shade of red with that comment and rested her forehead on top of the headboard, one eye peaking wearily down at him.

"I don't care about that. I just want you. I want you so very much."

"But this is –"

He interrupted, hoping to chase away her uncertainty, "Sit."

"Even _now_ , you speak to me like I'm a sheepdog."

He chuckled, "Please sit."

"On you?" She whispered, her voice cracking a little, he could only hope it was with desire.

"Please." His voice sounded alien. He'd never done this, never even contemplated it, but now it was his entire focus.

Slowly, she nodded, licking her bottom lip.

As she relaxed the muscles in her legs around his shoulders, he said, "Say my name when you come." She gasped, whether from the contact or the command, he knew not.

It was beyond all his expectations, this particular act. In theory it should have been objectionable, all that slick flesh, so close, everywhere. But it wasn't. It was maddeningly erotic. To have his every sense – sight, smell, sound, taste, touch – so full of Edith. To be overwhelmed by her and to overwhelm her in return. He was hard with it.

He licked her sex with slow deliberate strokes, designed to tease. Then he found her clitoris and she moaned and fisted her hand into his hair, "There." As soon as she declared him to be in the right place, he was moving away, "No, _no_. Please, please." She begged him to go back. It was an unworthy thought, perhaps, some remnant of his age and his education and his gender, masculine in the worst way: but he wanted her to beg, for a moment he would have the control of this. She might be on top because he couldn't be, but he would be the master of her pleasure. She had strings, and he would pluck them to an exquisite peak. Eventually, he relented and returned to swirl his tongue about her clitoris. That he was applying his attentions correctly was apparent from Edith's chorus of moans and half words and sentences. Then there was the way she flexed her hips back and forwards, riding – there was no other word for it - his mouth as she chased her pleasure.

Then, before he could ask her what was wrong, she was moving quickly if inelegantly back down the bed and his torso. She grasped his cock and once again took him inside her body.

"Christ!" He gasped, and feared for one awful moment that this time would be even more brief than the last. It was too good to be inside her. He heaved in great gulps of air and she was atop him, breathing just as heavily.

Between gasps, her eyes heavy lidded and needy, she asked, "All right?"

To his surprise, he was. He was back from the brink and he smiled because he could last, and she had to be close – so for her, he would last.

"I am."

"Can I?"

"Move Edith, move all you want."

She did. They did it together. And because he was flat on his back he could use his hand too. First to pinch her nipples as she liked and then between her legs.

"Oh God, oh God, I'm close, please, I'm so close. Please don't stop."

The polite request was wholly unnecessary, there was no chance of him stopping. He would see this through, see her through. He continued to touch and she rolled her hips to meet his fingers, breasts bouncing.

"God, that's – that's – I'm close – I'm."

"Scream it." He pleaded, "Scream my name." And with that the first beautiful ripples spread out from her core and she folded forwards towards him and then back. And he felt it all, enveloping and pulling his cock. She didn't scream it. Did anyone ever really _scream_ someone else's name in bed? But what he got was better. His name as a gasp, stretching out into the room around them as she arched her back into the sensation.

"That's it Edith, that's it, come for me, love."

If he'd seen anything more beautiful, or experienced anything more beautiful he was at a loss for what it might have been. This was transcendent. All his thoughts, concerns, every last scrap of matter skittered out of his head like sparking gunpowder from a Catherine wheel. Everything narrowed to a single pinnacle: Edith's soft warmth pressing and clenching around his cock as he came hard with a groan.

Afterwards they cleaned each other up in the shower, too tired and sated to do anything other than exchange lazy kisses. They changed into nonsensically conservative pajamas given just how naked they'd been with one another during the evening and curled up in his bed. He nuzzled at her damp hair and enjoyed the smell of her lavender shampoo, all the while wondering how long he could have this happiness.

"Edith?"

"Yes?" She responded, sleepily.

"How would you feel about – if you're doing your research, I mean – it would make sense – Would you like to -"

She rolled onto her side and looked straight at him, "Anthony, what is it?"

"Stay."

 _Forever_.

"For Christmas, that is? Anna convinced Bates on the big Christmas celebration, and I thought you might like to stay for Christmas."

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Yes."

She smiled, and cuddled tighter into his chest, "Then I'll stay."


	29. Chapter 29

_A/N: Oh, lovely readers and reviewers, thank you ever so much. I am sorry for the delay. I have worked on seemingly every chapter of this story, except this one and the one after, the ones I actually needed to write. Thus I am a bit behind, and you might get Andith Christmas a little after real Christmas, apologies in advance._

There were times in Edith's life when she believed she'd been happy. Dancing with her father, balanced precariously atop his feet, at her parent's tenth wedding anniversary party. Chosen for the honour above both Mary and Sybil. At fifteen a poem she'd written was published in a national anthology. Looking back, it was terrible; all about global warming and tragedy and the earth's abundant bounty under attack. The stuff of teenage emotional excess, but, at the time, it was the best thing she'd ever written and her name was in a book. Her acceptance letter from Newnham had rendered her speechless one moment and dancing around the kitchen putting on an excellent rendition of _Eye of the Tiger_ the next. There was the blissful summer between the end of _tripos_ and the results of _tripos_. Life was sun, champagne and punting whilst musing on every conceivable topic.

As she moved away from her teenage years and into adulthood those moments of joy and contentment started to become more difficult to find. The nagging suspicion she wasn't meant to be an historian became ever more prominent. Self-doubt was her constant companion. She remembered a sense of happiness on handing in her MA dissertation and during the first few weeks of her relationship with Michael Gregson, so high was she on the idea that he would want to date her. But that was it. She experienced much of her life, particularly her adult life, in a haze of grey indifference.

Now, everything was in colour. Curled up in the corner of the archive, reading a lambing pamphlet from 1872, knowing that Anthony would arrive to pick her up at the end of the day. This was happiness.

It transformed her work too. In the past she'd had to pull every word, on every topic like blood from a stone with a blunt syringe. Each essay, article, chapter was fueled by masses of tea and simmering anxiety about what the consequences might be if she didn't at least write something. The achievement was to have something done, the contents were never satisfactory, it had been too much of a mental trauma to even reach the stage of finished. Productivity arose only from negativity.

Now the words flooded out. Off the back of the incredible assortment of documents she'd read whilst at the archives, she'd written two complete articles and had ideas for eight more.

Then there were Pearson's diaries. Once one was found and they knew what they were looking for, she and Mrs Hughes found a whole box of them. The early thoughts of a girl full of ambition, frustration and passion even before she was sixteen. Pearson obsessed over the antics of the Suffragettes, catalogued the news of the movement for the vote. She was asked to leave school on six separate occasions for expressing her thoughts too vocally on the subject. Then there was the war. That consumed her too, all the injustices of it – her Father lost his life and her grief bled onto the pages through her pen - but there were triumphs, her Mother's achievement running the local school and the community pulling together through the turmoil. There was the occasional mention of the Strallan family and Locksley – 'the big house on the hill', as Pearson had labelled it, a little socialist, Edith suspected, even aged twelve. She'd ask Anthony about the names mentioned or the places or events and he'd shrug his shoulders. It had been her experience at Cambridge that the families of the most historic individuals were usually the worst historians of them. She'd been at College with the great-granddaughter of Nancy Astor, who was surprised to learn she'd had a run in (or two) with Churchill. Anthony found inventive ways to alleviate her annoyance at his lack of knowledge; in his arms she quickly forgot.

Edith inhaled Pearson's every word, greedy for them. She knew this girl. And she was desperate to find the rest of the diaries, to know the woman she would become, to know what consequences she'd had to shoulder. It was every historian's dream to discover an untapped resource and a voracious diarist was foremost amongst the possibilities.

How could she not be happy? She was in love. And she was doing what she loved, successfully, she felt, for the first time in her life.

"I'm sorry to interrupted again my dear."

Edith stuck a thumb in the page she'd reached, "No need to be sorry, what's the problem?"

Mrs Hughes sat on the floor across the other side of the room in the middle of a big puddle of grey skirts, a large leather book open beside her. The pen in her mouth waggled frantically as she spoke, "If I cannot find a date on a document –"

"Nothing in that pile pre-dates 1850 or post-dates 1900, just write 'date unknown' and reference those years." Mrs Hughes had decided to try and catalogue the contents of the archive. Edith had a suspicion that she was simply lonely, the library being so quiet once the schools broke up for the holidays and no one waiting at home.

"Ah – thank you."

They worked for a few more hours in a companionable silence, punctuated by Edith's need to share some fascinating fact or figure and Mrs Hughes's confusion about the material she was trying to manage. As the end of the day approached she started to stack the catalogued documents in neat piles. She caught her toe in the hem of her skirt and petticoat and fell to the floor with a thud and an exclamation. Out of the corner of her eye Edith saw the tumble of a cloud of grey fabric and the swish of flying papers.

"Mrs Hughes! Mrs Hughes!"

The librarian lay flat on the floor, staring at the ceiling, somehow looking both pained and cross.

"Bugger."

"Are you all right?"

"The pride's certainly damaged. The rest of me, I'm not too sure. Give me a hand would you dear?"

Together they worked her upper torso into a sitting position, and she leant back against the staircase, closing her eyes a moment. Frowning, she looked down at her feet, "My right ankle, it's –"

The first blooms of an ugly bruise were already showing. "Can you move it?" Edith asked. A slight shift. "Can you stand on it?"

Mrs Hughes attempted to straighten the foot so that she might flatten it out and try to walk, but sucked in a breath of air with a grimace, "Not a chance."

"Wait here." Mrs Hughes gave her an arch look in response. "You know what I mean! I'll get Thomas. He'll be able to carry you up the stairs."

"I'm sure he'll be delighted to assist."

Outside she found Anthony leaning against the car. In the furor downstairs she'd forgotten it was nearly home time and that they'd see one another again. He gave her his dimple and her heart skipped in reply. Would she ever stop feeling giddy on seeing him? Intellectually, she knew she probably would, but at that moment she couldn't imagine it.

He leant down and kissed her on the cheek, shy, still, of too much affection in public, "Evening. Where's your coat? And bag for that matter?"

The sight of him had made her forget her task, "Oh, I'm not ready yet, Mrs Hughes has taken a fall and she can't - "

"What?!"

At that moment she noticed Mr Carson at the back of the car, unloading a few things from the boot.

"What's happened to Elsie?" He barked the question, demanding answers, and quick.

"Steady on Charlie." Anthony said.

Edith explained, "It's nothing to worry about, she just fell and -"

Then he was off, through the door of the library, calling his wife's name. Edith and Anthony stared at the space he left.

"Oh God, she's not going to be happy. I was supposed to get Thomas. What is Charlie doing down here any way?"

Anthony went to the boot and shut it, piling Carson's things up beside the rear wheel, "He drove me. How do you think I get here every night?"

"Of course."

"And then I suspect he lurks by the pub and watches Mrs Hughes lock up and walk home."

Wrinkling her nose, Edith replied, "I can't decide if that's creepy or romantic."

"Making sure the woman you love navigates home safely in the darkness?" He tucked his arm around her waist and she did the same, fitting her thumb into his belt loop, "Romantic, I think."

It was apparent at the top of the archive stairs that Edith's prediction had been right: Mrs Hughes was not happy. Her voice was raised, going at a mile a minute and her accent had turned very, very Scottish.

"Dinnae touch me Charlie Carson!" She shouted.

"Elsie. _Elsie_." He placated, or attempted to, and failed.

"I dinnae need your help!"

Carson said to them, "Being angry brings out the Glaswegian in her."

"Dinnae talk about me like I'm not here."

He sighed, "I'm sorry, love. Let me help."

"I'm not your love. And, no."

"Yes you are. Now don't be stubborn. You can't walk." He went to put his arms around her shoulders but she pushed them away.

She folded her arms and held her chin out, appearing for all the world as the very picture of stubborn, "I can. I just need a minute."

"Your ankle is twice its normal size. Last month up in the barn –"

She raised a hand to his mouth, "If you're about to compare me to a sheep, I suggest you rethink."

He cleared his throat and pursed his lips, but couldn't help himself, "A cow, but it's relevant –"

"Charlie!" She rested her head in her hands.

Edith stole a glance at Anthony and immediately wished she hadn't. He had his hand over his mouth and his shoulders rocked up and down. The blue in his eyes, shone with tears. On catching her eye, he snorted and let out an audible titter. _A titter_! Her six foot plus, blonde haired, blue eyed, Adonis tittered and she could hardly believe it, but it made her love him a little bit more. His giggles were catching and she started to laugh too. It was a farce, this scene. The angry Scots lady and her English knight in muddied arran wool.

"Elsie if you'll just listen to me!"

"You're infuriating! Infuriating! An insufferable know it all –" She paused, and seem to drag a word up from her stomach, "Bawbag!"

Puzzled, Edith couldn't help but interject, "What's a bawbag?"

Anthony laughed again and tried to smother it with a cough. He whispered in a voice laced with amusement, "I'll tell you later."

"And you!" Mrs Hughes turned her ire on Edith, pointing, "You were supposed to get Thomas, not him." She repositioned the pointing finger to jab it at her husband's chest.

"I'm sorry, events overtook me!"

"Thomas couldn't help you anyway Elsie. Spindly, pale boy." As he said this, he hooked one arm under her knees and the other about her torso, ignoring her continuing protestations. With a comedic groan that set Anthony and Edith giggling into their hands once again, he lifted his wife up. He looked down at her, "That lad couldn't manage you Elsie."

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

"Oh, quiet, you know I think you're perfect." As he whisked her past them, he winked and said, "I like a woman with a bit of flesh on her bones." It was obvious he was delighted to once again have his wife in his arms, regardless of the manner in which it had come about.

"Bawbag." Mrs Hughes said again, but without any venom. It was impossible not to notice that as they went up the stairs her head came to rest lightly upon her husband's shoulder.

Edith turned back to Anthony and jabbed her head at the sight in front of them, mouthing "Look!" With her eyes wide and her smile broad to act as the punctuation.

Through the descending mist and the inky black early evening Mr Carson carried his wife towards her home, slow but steady steps. Edith was certain he wouldn't drop her.

"Do you think they'll get back together?" Edith asked.

Anthony shook his head, "I think it's unlikely that a trip, fall and gallant, if somewhat ungainly, rescue will fix whatever forced them apart."

"We could help them along a bit?"

"What do you mean?"

"Hang on." She sprinted over to the couple, who were still bickering about what help Mr Carson should and should not offer.

"I meant to ask earlier - Mrs Hughes, and you too Mr Carson, do you want to come to Christmas lunch at Locksley? Anna's cooking enough food for a small army."

Mrs Hughes frowned and Carson smiled, "We'd be delighted."

"What do you mean by 'we', Charles Carson?"

"I mean you and I, Elsie Hughes. Christmas is in four days; you won't be back on your feet by then. You won't be driving up to Glasgow for dinner with your crotchety sister, so _we_ might as well have it here."

"You don't make my decisions Mr Carson. I –"

The argument, Edith sensed, was likely to continue, so she jogged back to the car. Anthony stood dutifully by the driver's door, watching her return and opening it so she could clamber inside.

"I invited them to Christmas lunch."

"Playing matchmaker?"

"They're meant to be, I think, I'm just trying to push them along."

Anthony narrowed his eyes, "You didn't trip her up did you?"

She laughed, "Nowhere near the scene of the accident, Officer, I promise."

"Well, I have to tell you, the use of the term bawbag does not bode all that well for your hopes of reconciliation."

"What does it mean?"

"Annoying person."

Edith considered a moment and shook her head, "that's not so bad."

With a raised finger - discouraging her early declaration - Anthony added, "And also: scrotum."

He glanced across at her and she caught his eye. She saw his bottom lip moving again, the shake of his shoulders and the tears gathering. With no one to judge them they dissolved like schoolchildren into peels of laughter.


	30. Chapter 30

_A/N Dear Readers, I am so, so sorry for the delay. Had a crazy Christmas and New Year. Work has been busy. I'm emigrating (!) and I lost a huge chunk of this chapter when my computer went haywire. Please do bear with me, I promise I'm still writing away. I will finish this. Thank you, thank you, for reading and reviewing._

Peering at the clock through a fold in the duvet, Anthony Strallan had to remind himself that farming stopped for no one and nothing. Not for cold, or for sleet, or for winter, or for Christmas. Not for the warm woman in the farmer's bed. And today he had the complete set – a cold, sleety, winter's Christmas morning and Edith still tucked under the duvet, warm and welcoming and just for him.

He turned and folded his body around her – there were ten minutes left on that sleep timer and he intended to make the very most of them. Play the big spoon. She mumbled and fidgeted, her bottom coming to rest snugly against his erection. There were some words from her side of the bed, heavy and drowsy and impossible to understand. A few more shifts and then she pulled his good arm around her middle and his hand came to rest on her breast. Then she sighed, saying, without words: _that's it_. Her body relaxed and his did too. It wasn't sexual, this moment, it was peaceful.

Shattered, scant minutes later, by the alarm clock.

"Sorry Edith, I have to work for a while."

He ploughed a fist into the top of the alarm clock, wishing it would smash into tiny pieces. It was basically indestructible. All other electronic items purchased in the mid-90s would have given up the ghost but not that one, the malevolent black box with its incessant blinking numbers and aggressive buzzing. He inched his limbs out from beneath the covers and swore under his breath, diving for his dressing gown and slippers.

Behind him, Edith flopped into the space he'd vacated, the duvet coming up around half her head and her chin so she looked for all the world like an Eskimo spaceman.

"S'Christmas."

"I know." He yawned, "But I don't think the sheepdogs or the pigs or the goats quite appreciate that. If fact, if Jesus Christ Our Saviour came to this very farm and explained it to them I'm not sure they'd listen."

He removed the ashes from the previous night's fire and set a new one, so at least it would be warm for Edith when she woke up properly.

"If only it were a hundred years ago, I'd have had a merry band of farm hands to do all this work for me."

She replied, muffled, and he turned to face her.

"What?"

She made a hole for her mouth in the frothy cotton and said, voice thick with sleep, "I wouldn't be so sure, the village labourers went on strike in '19 and '20."

This was how it had been in the weeks since she'd come back. A litany of facts she couldn't help but impart. Anyone else in her position might seem like a know it all, and anyone else in his position might have said so. But, God she was beautiful in her knowledge, eyes glinting, lips curling as she lectured. From her, he wanted to hear it, he wanted to hear everything. It made her luminous.

Her eyes were closed again, and, having corrected his assumption, she appeared to have fallen straight back to sleep. He lit the fire in four places, blowing gently to make sure it caught not only the paper but the wood too. Standing, he went to wrap himself up in the warmest clothes he could find.

This was the first Christmas Day he hadn't dreaded in the long years since the accident. Ordinarily he'd be visited by his own Ghosts of Christmas: anger, guilt and misery. But Edith had forced him to visit his Father's grave on Christmas Eve, the anniversary of his death, and demanded to hear good stories about the man who'd sired him. At first, he protested, loudly and vociferously, that there weren't any - it was a relationship characterized by animosity and disappointment. He snapped that she was meddling where she wasn't wanted. But she bore it like no one else ever had. Over his protestations and his belligerence, she coaxed and wheedled and questioned and finally he was recalling all manner of paternal moments. A trip to Wetherby races and an illicit flutter aged just thirteen. The delight they'd shared when he learnt to cast a line and then - more delight - caught a fish! Before he knew it, they'd passed the entire afternoon in pleasant recollection.

As he walked from the house to meet Carson he was able simply to miss his father and think of their best days.

The working day for him started with the dogs. It was a job a man with one arm could easily accomplish, open the gates, set out some food and let them all run about for twenty minutes whilst he sipped tea from a flask. He whistled when it seemed like they'd had enough time, and they all came running back, before he shut the gate.

"That whistle still needs work, Sir Anthony."

"You've been saying that for years Charlie. It might be time to accept I'm never quite going to do it to your specifications." He checked the latch on the gate, "Besides, they come for me now don't they? Isn't that the point?"

His first few attempts at this simple task after the accident had resulted in deep suspicion amongst the dogs. They growled at him and bared their back teeth. Only his own sense of indifference to his life and remaining limbs kept him trying everyday; being ripped apart by a pack of sheepdogs didn't seem so very bad.

"I've done the pigs." Said Carson, "Cows next, then we'll do the sheep."

"Quick morning then."

"Speaking too soon, Sir Anthony, as ever. The wall up in the east field's gone again."

" _Christ_. Must we repair it _today_?" Anthony said, impatiently, not for Christmas, but for Edith.

"Afraid so. There's sheep up there. And we do not want to be spending our Christmas Day evening rounding them up off Burrowes's land." Charlie tipped his head in Anthony's direction and pushed up the brim of his flat cap, "I assume you're in agreement with that?"

"Yes. Yes." He rolled his eyes, knowing, of course, what they must do, but irritated to see his chances of getting back into a warm bed with Edith before the festivities commenced slipping away, "Let's get on then."

In the cow shed, Anthony raked muck, not a task to relish, but one he could do to Carson's rather exacting standards. Carson checked each of the animals and tinkered with the milking machine before replenishing hay and feed.

"How is Mrs Hughes?"

He spoke in between dragging bales across the barn, "Stubborn." He said through gritted teeth. "But –" He heaved a bale into place, "stubborn is not so very bad. She wasn't stubborn before. She was just silent, and then she left." He plunged a fork into the bale and started to loosen the hay, "It was the silence that did us in. As long as she's talking, there's a chance."

They patched up the wall together, lifting and passing and layering stones in double quick time. There was a warm house and Christmas lunch to get to and their women were waiting. The incentives to finish were many and they were as speedy and as efficient as a whole troop of farm labourers, and with only three working arms between them.

Back at Locksley Anthony showered the warmth back into his limbs and headed downstairs. The kitchen was full of people and he immediately scanned the faces to see if one of them was Edith. That was what he did now on entering a room: check to see if she was in it, his lodestar. But there was no sign.

"Put this on." Anna jammed an apron into his middle. It tinkled ominously. Sure enough, it was decorated with an elf costume, complete with five bells affixed to the collar, above which was the loop for his head. It was ridiculous.

"I'm not wearing this."

"You have to. I'm Santa –" Her apron had Santa's red and white motif stamped on it, looking entirely out of place on Anna's slender frame, "and you're my helpers."

"I think the aprons are very festive." Mrs Hughes chimed in, seated at the kitchen table, foot elevated, seasoning some stuffing.

Bates turned around from where he stood at the sink and said, "Best just get on board Sir Anthony, _everyone_ else has." He nodded in the direction of the door.

Anthony turned and barked a laugh. Peeling carrots in the dimmest corner of the kitchen, no doubt hoping he could blend away into the darkness was Thomas: The Elf.

"Well, Merry Christmas Mr Barrow. I must say, green really is your colour."

Thomas glared at him, "Ho – ho – _ho_. Put your bloody apron on My Lord and get chopping." He jabbed the peeler in the direction of the carrots.

Finally, after chopping carrots and parsnips and turnips and seemingly every other vegetable in existence on the planet, he made his escape.

He found Edith in the dining room, circling the the table, placing crackers above each of the plates. He gulped down the sight of her. The hours since this morning felt like years. He leaned on the doorframe and watched. She hummed – _Let It Snow._ Her hips swayed with the rhythm and her ponytail, tied with gold tinsel, kicked to one side and then the other. He longed to entwine their fingers and pull her into a twirl, under the arc of his arm and round into his chest, guide her around the table in a waltz. Maybe croon a line or two into her ear – The Pogues, perhaps – _so happy Christmas, I love you baby_.

His hand flexed and he made to move towards her. His heart went, but his head stayed, and he found he was still standing exactly where he'd started. _Foolish_. One armed men couldn't dance. He'd lost any singing voice aged eleven. And who could forget the sadness, somehow portentous, at the heart of Fairytale of New York – _you took my dreams from me_.

"I know you're there." She said, fixing a red glittering bow to the handle of the window.

"How?"

"You jingle now."

"Right." Hastily, he pulled off the stupid apron and folded it over his arm.

"How's lunch looking?"

"It smells marvellous. Anna is on about the eighteenth basting of the turkey. Mrs Hughes is taking stuffing to Michel Roux levels of perfection. And, if I do say so myself, I've cut the most exquisite carrot cubes."

"Goodness, do the people at Michelin know about you?"

"I expect a star any day now."

She smiled and kissed him, pushing him out of the way so she could fix the last of her bows to the front of the dining room door.

"This is brilliant Edith." The room looked like the front page of a Christmas catalogue.

"Thank you. If I so much as look at a carrot I will burn it, so this is my way of contributing."

"Did you speak to your parents?"

"I did. Mum is loving the weather in Greece, Dad was already half pissed on G&Ts."

"Sybil?" 

"She's enjoying her very Catholic Christmas with Tom and his million relatives. Talked non-stop about Sybie."

"And Mary?" She turned away and bundled the leftover decorations into the sideboard, "Edith?" She blew a raspberry, tongue coming full out of her mouth, like a toddler, and she sat back on her heels, "Well, that's mature."

"I sent a text."

"Edith!" He chastised.

"I have to see her at new year. She can save her insults until then." He helped her up, "A telephone conversation might have spoiled my day." She pressed her thumb into the palm of his hand, "And I didn't want that."

He knew then that he'd say no more about it, because he didn't want anything to pierce this bubble of perfection either.

Thomas poked his head into the room, rolling his eyes at the sight of their linked hands, "We're adjourning to the living room for booze and pre-dinner nibbles." Baring his teeth into what Anthony assumed he considered a smile, he added, "Anna wants the good champagne, she can't find it." With that, he skulked off.

"Charm personified, that man."

"Come on, the quicker we find the champagne, the quicker we'll all be drinking it." He followed her through into the kitchen.

Edith went to fetch the ice buckets and Anthony hunted in the pantry for the _Dom Perignon_.

"I don't know if the _Dom_ is in here, I think the good stuff is in – "The rest of the sentence emerged as a muffled exhale against the fingers of Edith's hand, and the cupboard was plunged into darkness. In the confined space Edith was pressed up against him and he had to execute the human equivalent of a 167 point turn in order to manoeuvre round to face her. Frowning, he said, " _Whahmpt_?!"

She raised her index finger to her lips and gestured at the now closed pantry door. Behind it, he heard voices.

"I don't know why you won't let me help!"

"The doctor gave me crutches for a reason, Charles. I have to exercise and learn to get about on my own."

"Not today! These floors are old and slippery and –"

"Oh, please. The floors are fine."

The creak of the oven door was followed by the blast of the fan inside. Anthony took the opportunity to bend down and whisper in Edith's ear, "We shouldn't eavesdrop."

The slats of light slicing through the door were enough to illuminate her disinterest in that proposal, she scowled and pressed in closer to the conversation on the other side.

"Is that the stuffing? No need to give me that look!"

"Well, you asked a stupid question."

"May I have a taste?"

"No."

"Why?!" Charlie's tone was incredulous.

"Because."

"Not an answer Elsie."

" _Because_ , on today of all days, I am not in the mood for your criticism." Mrs Hughes's words rung out through the kitchen and there was silence, too much silence, before Charlie responded 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Beside him, Edith shook her head, obviously worried at this turn for her star-crossed lovers.

"Nothing I ever do is good enough for you. You make me feel terrible and I don't want to feel terrible on Christmas Day."

"That's ridiculous."

"When we were together you criticised everything I did. Everything."

Carson's voice was trembling, he spoke low and even, "Elsie, I do not accept that is true."

"I can't cook lamb chops, or peel a potato, or make a bed. I bought too much milk and not enough sugar. I stacked the dishwasher incorrectly and laundered your jumpers on too high a heat. My garden is unkempt and my shelves are dusty. And I don't doubt for one minute that, you'd find this stuffing under seasoned or that it contains too much parsley and not enough peas. I spent all morning on it, and I just won't have it." Something clattered, perhaps a wooden spoon had been dashed onto the countertop as if to emphasise her point.

A chair scraped against the floor, and there was a heavy sigh, "That's why you left."

Edith's hand had gone across her mouth and her eyes were wide. He could see now, how she'd hoped for a Christmas reconciliation and, given the signs from the next room, it was not likely to be a gift even Santa could manage. He snaked him arm about her waist and squeezed her into his body. She tilted her head up to look at him and he kissed the tip of her nose.

"Is it?" Charlie asked, and their attention was drawn back to the kitchen.

"You have no idea what it was like. To marry the man – to marry _you_ – and then to find – to find I was such a disappointment."

"Elsie –"

"I should never have said yes. What did I know about being a wife? About sharing my life? It was a mistake."

Both he and Edith were breathing quicker and deeper, engrossed. This was the moment; they both sensed it. A crossroads in the lives of the two people on the other side of the door. Carson could stay silent, or say too much, or not enough, and the rupture would be permanent. And this was Charles Carson, a man of few words and stoic emotions. The man who'd given him a slap on the back when he'd returned to the farm after his father's death and said, "Yes, well, awful thing. But best get on lad." It had taken him twenty years to confess his feelings to Mrs Hughes. That he might marshal the right words and rescue their marriage seemed so unlikely, but _Christ_ , Anthony wanted him to do it. He manoeuvred nearer to the door. Edith shuffled over, making a bit of space.

"No, Elsie. _No_." The word was fierce.

"Charles –"

"You were _never_ a disappointment. You – look, come here would you, Elsie, please, come here, please –"

There was the shuffle of the chair again, and Anthony scrunched up his eyes and tried to peer through the minuet gaps in the pantry door. He could see a figure in a chair and one knelt down on the floor beside it.

"It's my fault Elsie. I'd been a bachelor too long. I didn't know how to be and it didn't occur to me that I couldn't simply demand matters be done to my liking. I tried to manage you like the lads on the farm."

In the pantry, Edith and he recoiled at that. He wanted to tap on the door and point out that Mrs Hughes was unlikely to appreciate the comparison.

"I am not a farmhand, Charles Carson! And I do not –"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Just let me get my words out Elsie, please. Just let me say – I never said all the things I appreciated."

"Like what?" She asked, tentatively, and somewhat sceptically.

"So many things." He clicked his fingers, as though summoning one of the dogs, "Cheese sandwiches – you've mastered a perfect cheese to chutney ratio and it never made the bread overly wet. I – I – oh, I know - when you read to me I am mesmerised, it's better than TV. And you made me read that Bryson book and I laughed until I cried. The corners on your bedsheets are pressed and turned to military precision. You put wildflowers all over our house and it's like having the outside inside. And at night Elsie, in our bed –"

Edith stifled a giggle, and Anthony jabbed his thumb into her hip. Luckily, Carson's voice dropped a level, so they only caught snippets of the intimacies he described.

"Oh, Charles." Her voice was watery, and she sniffed, "I don't know. I don't know if I can bear it if it goes wrong again. It's too much to lose."

"Elsie, it'll be hard work, but we just need to talk don't we? I'll be less critical and you'll tell me when I'm being an ass." She laughed at that, "But we have to try Elsie, we have to try because – because we love one another, don't we? I do, at least –" He cleared his throat, "I love you Elsie. I've loved you half my life and I will love you for the rest of it too."

In his throat, Anthony could feel the beat of his heart. Edith's hand squeezed his. He glanced down at her and wished for a tenth of Carson's bravery.

" _Och_ , you silly man. I love you too. I love you too." Mrs Hughes's second declaration was muffled and through the sliver of light, Anthony could see the two shadowy figures embracing.

Everyone was the very definition of merry by the end of dinner. The inevitable effect of around a bottle of champagne each, followed by copious amounts of wine and excellent port with the cheese. Thomas led them in a chorus of _Jingle Bells_ as they retired, changing the lyrics throughout to include a variety of obscenities.

In the living room they collapsed onto sofas and armchairs, luxuriating in their post-banquet gluttony. Bates surreptitiously undid the button of his jeans and Anna declared with fervour that she would never eat again, before accepting a fat chocolate truffle from a golden box. There was no room on the three seater where Edith had commandeered a corner; the rest of the space being taken up by a sprawling Mrs Hughes and her bandaged ankle and Carson, who insisted on sitting beside her to provide support. Anthony could have taken the chair by the desk, or the sole armchair near the fire, or the padded coffee table which doubled as a stool. He let his eyes dart from one unpalatable seat to the next. All those options were much too far away from where he wanted to be: in the warmth of Edith's orbit.

And so, buoyed by the fizz of alcohol and good company and, yes - he could admit to himself - the Christmas spirit, which dictated wishes could come true and that dreams were to be followed, he put a pillow on the floor between Edith's feet and sat against the sofa, letting his head rest against her knee. Once he'd settled into his position he realised how quiet the room had become, all the eyes looking, startled, in his direction.

Mrs Hughes blinking rapidly. Thomas looking as though he might vomit from such a display of intimacy. Carson with a raised eyebrow.

"Told you." Said Bates to a gaping Anna, "You owe me twenty quid."

Anthony craned his head back to look up at Edith, she smiled, blushing. Her fingers squeezed his neck and worked their way through his hair. It was all he could do not to purr like a cat in front of everyone.

"Yes, they're having sex, can we please open presents now?"

A gasp and a giggle and Thomas was quickly silenced by a pillow missile. But then they did, as he suggested, open presents.


End file.
